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BEHIND     THE     BEYOND 

STEPHEN    LEACOCK 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 


BEHIND  THE  BEYOND 

NONSENSE  NOVELS 

LITERARY  LAPSES 

SUNSHINE  SKETCHES 

MOONBEAMS  FROM  THE 
LARGER  LUNACY 

ESSAYS  AND  LITERARY 
STUDIES 

FURTHER  FOOLISHNESS 


5iM 


BEHIND    THE 
:::  BEYOND::: 

AND  OTHER  CONTRIBUTIONS 
TO  HUMAN  KNOWLEDGE 


BY  STEPHEN   LE ACOCK 

AUTHOR    OF    "NONSENSE    NOVELS,"    "LITERARY 
:  ••  :  LAPSES."   "SUNSHINE  SKETCHES."  ETC.   :  ■   •• 


ILLUSTRATED     BY     A.     H.     FISH 


NEW  rORK:  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 
LONDON:  JOHN  LANE,  THE  BOD  LET  HEAD 
TORONTO:  S.  B.  GUNDY  MCMXXI 


y 


Copyright,  1913,  by 

THE  CROWELL  PUBLISHING  COMPANi' 

Copyright,  1913,  by 

THE  CENTURY  COMPANY 

Copyright,  1913,  by 
JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 


C  ONTENTS 


BEHIND  THE  BEYOND 

FAMILIAR  INCIDENTS 

I.  With  the  Photographer 

II.  The  Dentist  and  the  Gas 

III.  My  Lost  Opportunities 

IV.  My  Unknown  Friend  . 
V.  Under  the  Barber's  Knife 

PARISIAN  PASTIMES 

I.  The  Advantages  of  a  Polite  Education 

11.  The  Joys  of  Philanthropy  . 

HI.  The  Simple  Life  in  Paris    . 

IV.  A  Visit  to  Versailles  . 

V.  Paris  at  Night     . 


THE    RETROACTIVE   EXISTENCE   OF   MR, 
JUGGINS 


MAKING  A  MAGAZINE 
HOMER  AND  HUMBUG 


II 


53 
6i 

69 
74 
84 


93 
104 

117 
129 

143 

IS9 
169 

18s 


ILL  USTRATIONS 


The  Prologue Frontispiece 

TO  FACE  PAGE 

The  curtain  rises 12 

Their  expression  is  stamped  with  deep  thought  .  28 

He  kisses  her  on  the  bare  shoulder       .         .  30 

He  takes  her  in  his  arms        .         .         .         .  50 

"Is  it  me?" 58 

I  did   go — I   KEPT  THE  APPOINTMENT      ...  66 

He  showed  me  a  church  that  I  could  have  bought 

rOR  A  HUNDRED  THOUSAND     .     .     .     ,  72 
I  SHALL  NOT  TRY  TO  BE  QUITE  SO  EXTRAORDINARILY 

CLEVER 84 

When  he  reached  my  face  he  looked  searching- 

LY  AT  IT 88 

The  tailor  shrugged  his  shoulders.  .  .  98 
Something  in  the  quiet  dignity  of  the  young. 

man  held  me ii4 

The  Parisian  dog 120 

Personally  I  plead  guilty  to  something  of  the 

same  spirit 142 

The  lady's  face  is  aglow  with  moral  enthusiasm  146 
Meanwhile  he  had  become  a  quaint-looking 

elderly  man  .......  166 

With  all  the  low  cunning  of  an  author  stamped 

on  his  features     .         .         .         .         .         .174 


BEHIND   THE  BEYOND 

A  Modern  Problem  Play 


Act  I, — Behind  the  Beyond 

THE  curtain  rises,  disclosing  the  ushers 
of  the  theater  still  moving  up  and 
down   the   aisles.      Cries   of   "Pro- 
gram!"    "Program  1"     are    heard. 
There  is  a  buzz  of  brilliant  conversation,  il- 
luminated with  flashes  of  opera  glasses  and  the 
rattle  of  expensive  jewelry. 

Then  suddenly,  almost  unexpectedly,  in  fact 
just  as  if  done,  so  to  speak,  by  machinery,  the 
lights  all  over  the  theater,  except  on  the  stage, 
are  extinguished.  Absolute  silence  falls. 
Here  and  there  is  heard  the  crackle  of  a  shirt 
front.    But  there  is  no  other  sound. 

In  this  expectant  hush,  a  man  in  a  check 
tweed  suit  walks  on  the  stage:  only  one  man, 
one  single  man.  Because  if  he  had  been  ac- 
companied by  a  chorus,  that  would  have  been 
a  burlesque;  if  four  citizens  in  togas  had  been 
with  him,  that  would  have  been  Shakespeare; 

II 


Behind  the  Beyond 


if  two  Russian  soldiers  had  walked  after  him, 
that  would  have  been  melodrama.  But  this  is 
none  of  these.  This  is  a  problem  play.  So  he 
steps  in  alone,  all  alone,  and  with  that  abso- 
lute finish  of  step,  that  ability  to  walk  as  if, — 
how  can  one  express  it? — as  if  he  were  walk- 
ing, that  betrays  the  finished  actor. 

He  has,  in  fact,  barely  had  time  to  lay  down 
his  silk  hat,  when  he  is  completely  betrayed. 
You  can  see  that  he  is  a  finished  actor — fin- 
ished about  fifteen  years  ago.  He  lays  the 
hat,  hollow  side  up,  on  the  silk  hat  table  on 
the  stage  right  center — bearing  north,  north- 
east, half  a  point  west  from  the  red  mica  fire 
on  the  stage  which  warms  the  theater. 

All  this  is  done  very,  very  quietly,  very  im- 
pressively. No  one  in  the  theater  has  ever  seen 
a  man  lay  a  silk  hat  on  a  table  before,  and  so 
there  is  a  breathless  hush.  Then  he  takes  off 
his  gloves,  one  by  one,  not  two  or  three  at  a 
time,  and  lays  them  in  his  hat.  The  expectancy 
is  almost  painful.  If  he  had  thrown  his  gloves 
into  the  mica  fire  it  would  have  been  a  relief. 
But  he  doesn't. 

12 


The  Curtain  rises. 


Behind  the  Beyond 


The  man  on  the  stage  picks  up  a  pile  of  let- 
ters from  the  letter  department  of  the  hat 
table.  There  are  a  great  many  of  these  let- 
ters, because  all  his  business  correspondence,  as 
well  as  his  private  letters,  are  sent  here  by  the 
General  Post  Office.  Getting  his  letters  in  this 
way  at  night,  he  is  able  to  read  them  like  light- 
ning. Some  of  them  he  merely  holds  upside 
down  for  a  fraction  of  a  second. 

Then  at  last  he  speaks.  It  has  become  ab- 
solutely necessary  or  he  wouldn't  do  it.  "So — > 
Sao  Paolo  risen  two — hum — Rio  Tinto  down 
again — Moreby  anxious,  'better  sell  for  half  a 
million  sterling' — hum  .  .  ." 

(Did  you  hear  that?  Half  a  million  sterling 
and  he  takes  it  just  as  quietly  as  that.  And  it 
isn't  really  in  the  play  either.  Sao  Paolo  and 
Rio  Tinto  just  come  in  to  let  you  know  the  sort 
of  man  you're  dealing  with.) 

"Lady  Gathorne — dinner — Thursday  the 
ninth — lunch  with  the  Ambassador — Friday  the 
tenth." 

(And  mind  you  even  this  is  just  patter.    The 

13 


Behind  the  Beyond 


Ambassador  doesn't  come  into  the  play  either. 
He  and  Lady  Gathorne  are  just  put  in  to  let 
the  people  in  the  cheaper  seats  know  the  kind 
of  thing  they're  up  against.) 

Then  the  man  steps  across  the  stage  and 
presses  a  button.  A  bell  rings.  Even  before 
it  has  finished  ringing,  nay,  just  before  it  begins 
to  ring,  a  cardboard  door  swings  aside  and  a 
valet  enters.  You  can  tell  he  is  a  valet  because 
he  is  dressed  in  the  usual  home  dress  of  a  stage 
valet. 

He  says,  "Did  you  ring,  Sir  John?" 

There  is  a  rustle  of  programs  all  over  the 
house.  You  can  hear  a  buzz  of  voices  say, 
"He's  Sir  John  Trevor."  They're  all  on  to 
him. 

When  the  valet  says,  "Did  you  ring.  Sir 
John,"  he  ought  to  answer,  "No,  I  merely 
knocked  the  bell  over  to  see  how  it  would 
sound,"  but  he  misses  it  and  doesn't  say  it. 

"Has  her  ladyship  come  home?" 

"Yes,  Sir  John." 

"Has  any  one  been  here?" 

"Mr.  Harding,  Sir  John." 
14 


Behind  the  Beyond 


"Any  one  else?" 

"No,  Sir  John." 

"Very  good." 

The  valet  bows  and  goes  out  of  the  card- 
board door,  and  everybody  in  the  theater,  or  at 
least  everybody  in  the  seats  worth  over  a  dol- 
lar, knows  that  there's  something  strange  in  the 
relations  of  Lady  Cicely  Trevor  and  Mr. 
Harding.  You  notice — Mr.  Harding  was  there 
and  no  one  else  was  there.  That's  enough  in 
a  problem  play. 

The  double  door  at  the  back  of  the  stage, 
used  only  by  the  principal  characters,  is  opened 
and  Lady  Cicely  Trevor  enters.  She  is  young 
and  very  beautiful,  and  wears  a  droopy  hat  and 
long  slinky  clothes  which  she  drags  across  the 
stage.  She  throws  down  her  feather  hat  and 
her  crepe  de  what-you-call-it  boa  on  the  boa 
stand.  Later  on  the  valet  comes  in  and  gathers 
them  up.  He  is  always  gathering  up  things  like 
this  on  the  stage — hats  and  boas  and  walking 
sticks  thrown  away  by  the  actors, — but  nobody 
notices  him.    They  are  his  perquisites. 

IS 


Behind  the  Beyond 


Sir  John  says  to  Lady  Cicely,  "Shall  I  ring 
for  tea?" 

And  Lady  Cicely  says,  "Thanks.  No,"  in  a 
weary  tone. 

This  shows  that  they  are  the  kind  of  people 
who  can  have  tea  at  any  time.  All  through  a 
problem  play  it  is  understood  that  any  of  the 
characters  may  ring  for  tea  and  get  it.  Tea  in 
a  problem  play  is  the  same  as  whisky  in  a  melo- 
drama. 

Then  there  ensues  a  dialogue  to  this  effect: 
Sir  John  asks  Lady  Cicely  if  she  has  been  out. 
He  might  almost  have  guessed  it  from  her  com- 
ing in  in  a  hat  and  cloak,  but  Sir  John  is  an 
English  baronet. 

Lady  Cicely  says,  "Yes,  the  usual  round," 
and  distributes  a  few  details  about  Duchesses 
and  Princesses,  for  the  general  good  of  the  au- 
dience. 

Then  Lady  Cicely  says  to  Sir  John,  "You 
are  going  out?" 

"Yes,  immediately." 

"To  the  House,  I  suppose." 

This  is  very  impressive.  It  doesn't  mean,  as 
i6 


Behind  the  Beyond 


you  might  think,  the  Workhouse,  or  the  White 
House,  or  the  Station  House,  or  the  Bon 
Marche.  It  is  the  name  given  by  people  of 
Lady  Cicely's  class  to  the  House  of  Commons. 

"Yes.  I  am  extremely  sorry.  I  had  hoped  I 
might  ask  to  go  with  you  to  the  opera.  I  fear 
it  is  impossible — an  important  sitting — the 
Ministers  will  bring  down  the  papers — the  Ka- 
foonistan  business.  The  House  will  probably 
divide  in  committee.  Gatherson  will  ask  a 
question.  We  must  stop  it  at  all  costs.  The 
fate  of  the  party  hangs  on  it." 

Sir  John  has  risen.  His  manner  has 
changed.  His  look  is  altered.  You  can  see 
him  alter  it.  It  Is  now  that  of  a  statesman. 
The  technical  details  given  above  have  gone  to 
his  head.    He  can't  stop. 

He  goes  on:  "They  will  force  a  closure  on 
the  second  reading,  go  into  committee,  come  out 
of  it  again,  redivlde,  subdivide  and  force  us  to 
bring  down  the  estimates." 

While  Sir  John  speaks.  Lady  Cicely's  man- 
ner has  been  that  of  utter  weariness.  She  has 
picked  up  the  London   Times  and  thrown  it 

17 


BeJiind  the  Beyond 


aside;  taken  up  a  copy  of  Punch  and  let  it  fall 
with  a  thud  to  the  floor,  looked  idly  at  a  piece 
of  music  and  decided,  evidently,  not  to  sing  it. 
Sir  John  runs  out  of  technical  terms  and  stops. 

The  dialogue  has  clearly  brought  out  the  fol- 
lowing points:  Sir  John  is  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  Lady  Cicely  is  not.  Sir  John  is 
twenty-five  years  older  than  Lady  Cicely.  He 
doesn't  see — isn't  he  a  fool,  when  everybody 
in  the  gallery  can  see  it? — that  his  parliamen- 
tary work  is  meaningless  to  her,  that  her  life 
is  insufficient.  That's  it.  Lady  Cicely  is  being 
"starved."  All  that  she  has  is  money,  position, 
clothes,  and  jewelry.  These  things  starve  any 
woman.  They  cramp  her.  That's  what  makes 
problem  plays. 

Lady  Cicely  speaks,  very  quietly,  "Are  you 
taking  Mr.  Harding  with  you?" 

"Why?" 

"Nothing.  I  thought  perhaps  I  might  ask 
him  to  take  me  to  the  opera.    Puffi  is  to  sing." 

''Do,  pray  do.  Take  Harding  with  you  by 
all  means.    Poor  boy,  do  take  him  with  you." 

Sir  John  pauses.  He  looks  at  Lady  Cicely 
i8 


Behind  the  Beyond 


very  quietly  for  a  moment.    He  goes  on  with  a 
slight  change  in  his  voice. 

"Do  you  know,  Cicely,  I've  been  rather 
troubled  about  Harding  lately.  There's  some- 
thing the  matter  with  the  boy,  something 
wrong." 

"Yes?" 

"He  seems  abstracted,  moody — I  think,  in 
fact  I'm  sure  that  the  boy  is  in  love." 

"Yes?" 

Lady  Cicely  has  turned  slightly  pale.  The 
weariness  is  out  of  her  manner. 

''Trust  the  instinct  of  an  old  man,  my  dear. 
There's  a  woman  in  it.  We  old  parliamentary 
hands  are  very  shrewd,  you  know,  even  in  these 
things.  Some  one  is  playing  the  devil  with 
Jack — with  Harding." 

Sir  John  is  now  putting  on  his  gloves  again 
and  gathering  up  his  parliamentary  papers 
from  the  parliamentary  paper  stand  on  the  left. 

He  cannot  see  the  change  in  Lady  Cicely's 
face.  He  is  not  meant  to  see  it.  But  even  the 
little  girls  in  the  tenth  row  of  the  gallery  are 
wise. 

19 


Behind  the  Beyond 


He  goes  on.  "Talk  to  Harding.  Get  it  out 
of  him.  You  women  can  do  these  things.  Find 
out  what  the  trouble  is  and  let  me  know.  I 
must  help  him."  (A  pause.  Sir  John  is  speak- 
ing almost  to  himself — and  the  gallery.)  "I 
promised  his  mother  when  she  sent  him  home, 
sent  him  to  England,  that  I  would." 

Lady  Cicely  speaks.  "You  knew  Mr.  Hard- 
ing's mother  very  well?" 

Sir  John:  "Very  well." 

"That  was  long  ago,  wasn't  it?'* 

"Long  ago." 

"Was  she  married  then?" 

"No,  not  then." 

"Here  in  London?" 

"Yes,  in  London.  I  was  only  a  barrister 
then  with  my  way  to  make  and  she  a  famous 
beauty."  (Sir  John  is  speaking  with  a  forced 
levity  that  doesn't  deceive  even  the  ushers.) 
"She  married  Harding  of  the  Guards.  They 
went  to  India.  And  there  he  spent  her  fortune 
— and  broke  her  heart."    Sir  John  sighs. 

"You  have  seen  her  since?" 

"Never." 

20 


Behind  the  Beyond 


"She  has  never  written  you?" 

"Only  once.  She  sent  her  boy  home  and 
wrote  to  me  for  help.  That  was  how  I  took 
him  as  my  secretary." 

"And  that  was  why  he  came  to  us  In  Italy 
two  years  ago,  just  after  our  marriage." 

"Yes,  that  was  why." 

"Does  Mr.  Harding  know?" 

"Know  what?" 

"That  you — knew  his  mother?" 

Sir  John  shakes  his  head.  "I  have  never 
talked  with  him  about  his  mother's  early  life." 

The  stage  clock  on  the  mantelpiece  begins 
to  strike.  Sir  John  lets  it  strike  up  to  four  or 
five,  and  then  says,  "There,  eight  o'clock.  I 
must  go.  I  shall  be  late  at  the  House.  Good- 
by." 

He  moves  over  to  Lady  Cicely  and  kisses 
her.  There  is  softness  in  his  manner — such 
softness  that  he  forgets  the  bundle  of  parlia- 
mentary papers  that  he  had  laid  down.  Every- 
body can  see  that  he  has  forgotten  them.  They 
were  right  there  under  his  very  eye. 

Sir  John  goes  out. 

21 


Behind  the  Beyond 


Lady  Cicely  stands  looking  fixedly  at  the 
fire.  She  speaks  out  loud  to  herself.  "How 
his  voice  changed — twenty-five  years  ago — so 
long  as  that — I  wonder  if  Jack  knows." 

There  is  heard  the  ring  of  a  bell  off  the  stage. 
The  valet  enters. 

"Mr.  Harding  is  downstairs,  my  lady." 

"Show  him  up,  Ransome." 

A  moment  later  Mr.  Harding  enters.  He  is 
a  narrow  young  man  in  a  frock  coat.  His  face 
is  weak.  It  has  to  be.  Mr.  Harding  is  meant 
to  typify  weakness.  Lady  Cicely  walks 
straight  to  him.  She  puts  her  two  hands  on  his 
shoulders  and  looks  right  into  his  face. 

"MY  DARLING,"  she  says.  Just  like  that. 
In  capital  letters.  You  can  feel  the  thrill  of  it 
run  through  the  orchestra  chairs.  All  the  audi- 
ence look  at  Mr.  Harding,  some  with  opera 
glasses,  others  with  eyeglasses  on  sticks.  They 
can  see  that  he  is  just  the  sort  of  ineffectual 
young  man  that  a  starved  woman  in  a  problem 
play  goes  mad  over. 

Lady  Cicely  repeats  "My  darling"  several 
times.     Mr.  Harding  says  "Hush,"  and  tries 

22 


Behind  tJie  Beyond 


to  disengage  himself.  She  won't  let  him.  He 
offers  to  ring  for  tea.  She  won't  have  any. 
"Oh,  Jack,"  she  says.  "I  can't  go  on  any 
longer.  I  can't.  When  first  you  loved  me,  I 
thought  I  could.     But  I  can't.     It  throttles  me 

here — this   house,    this   life,    everything " 

She  has  drawn  him  to  a  sofa  and  has  sunk  down 
in  a  wave  at  his  feet.  "Do  you  remember, 
Jack,  when  first  you  came,  in  Italy,  that  night, 
at  Amalfi,  when  we  sat  on  the  piazza  of  the 
palazzo?"  She  is  looking  rapturously  into  his 
face. 

Mr.  Harding  says  that  he  does. 

"And  that  day  at  Fiesole  among  the  orange 
trees,  and  Pisa  and  the  Capello  de  Terisa  and 
the  Mona  Lisa — Oh,  Jack,  take  me  away  from 
all  this,  take  me  to  the  Riviera,  among  the  con- 
tadini,  where  we  can  stand  together  with  my 
head  on  your  shoulder  just  as  we  did  in  the 
Duomo  at  Milano,  or  on  the  piaggia  at  Verona. 
Take  me  to  Corfu,  to  the  Campo  Santo,  to 
CIvita  Vecchia,  to  Para  Noia — anywhere " 

Mr.  Harding,  smothered  with  her  kisses, 
says,  "My  dearest,  I  will,  I  will."     Any  man 

23 


Behind  the  Beyond 


in  the   audience  would  do  as  much.     They'd 
take  her  to  Honolulu. 

While  she  is  speaking,  Sir  John's  voice  had 
been  heard  off  the  stage.  "No,  thank  you,  Ran- 
some,  I'll  get  them  myself,  I  know  just  where 
I  left  them."  Sir  John  enters  hurriedly,  ad- 
vances and  picks  up  his  papers  on  the  table — 
turns — and  stands 

He  sees  his  wife's  attitude  and  hears  her  say 
"Riviera,  Amalfi,  Orangieri,  Contadini  and 
Capello  Santo."  It  is  enough.  He  drops  his 
parliamentary  papers.  They  fall  against  the 
fire  irons  with  a  crash.  These  in  falling  upset 
a  small  table  with  one  leg.  The  ball  of  wool 
that  is  on  it  falls  to  the  floor.  The  noise  of  this 
disturbs  the  lovers. 

They  turn.  All  three  look  at  one  another. 
For  a  moment  they  make  a  motion  as  if  to  ring 
for  tea.     Then  they  stand  petrified. 

"You!"  gasps  Lady  Cicely.     She  does  this 
awfully  well.     Everybody  says  afterward  that 
it  was  just  splendid  when  she  said  "You." 
Sir  John  stands  gazing  in  horror.     "Him  I 
24 


Behind  the  Beyond 


My  Godl  He  I"  Mr.  Harding  says  nothing. 
He  looks  very  weak. 

Lady  Cicely  unpetrifies  first. 

She  breaks  out,  speaking  through  her  nos- 
trils. "Yes,  I  love  him,  I  love  him.  I'm  not 
ashamed  of  it.  What  right  have  you  to  deny 
it  me?  You  gave  me  nothing.  You  made  me 
a  chattel,  a  thing " 

You  can  feel  the  rustle  of  indignation 
through  the  house  at  this.  To  make  a  woman  a 
thing  is  the  crowning  horror  of  a  problem  play. 

"You  starved  me  here.  You  throttled  me." 
Lady  Cicely  takes  herself  by  the  neck  and  throt- 
tles herself  a  little  to  show  how. 

"You  smothered  me.  I  couldn't  breathe — 
and  now  I'm  going,  do  you  hear,  going  away, 
to  life,  to  love,  behind  the  beyond  1"  She  gath- 
ers up  Mr.  Harding  (practically)  and  carries 
him  passionately  away.  He  looks  back  weakly 
as  he  goes. 

Sir  John  has  sunk  down  upon  a  chair.  His 
face  is  set. 

"Jack,"  he  mutters,  "my  God,  Jack  I" 

25 


Behind  the  Beyond 


As  he  sits  there,  the  valet  enters  with  a  tele- 
gram on  a  tray. 

"A  telegram,  Sir  John." 

Sir  John  (dazed  and  trying  to  collect  him- 
self), "What?" 

"A  telegram,  sir, — a  cablegram." 

Sir  John  takes  it,  opens  it  and  reads  aloud: 

"He  is  dead.  My  duty  is  ended.  I  am  com- 
ing home — Margaret  Harding." 

"Margaret  coming  home.  It  only  needed 
that — my  God." 

As  he  says  it,  the  curtain  falls. 

The  lights  flick  up.  There  is  a  great  burst 
of  applause.  The  curtain  rises  and  falls.  Lady 
Cicely  and  Mr.  Harding  and  Sir  John  all  come 
out  and  bow  charmingly.  There  is  no  trace  of 
worry  on  their  faces,  and  they  hold  one  an- 
other's hands.  Then  the  curtain  falls  and  the 
orchestra  breaks  out  into  a  Winter  Garden 
waltz.  The  boxes  buzz  with  discussion.  Some 
of  the  people  think  that  Lady  Cicely  is  right  in 
claiming  the  right  to  realize  herself:  others 
think  that  before  reahzing  herself  she  should 

26 


Behind  the  Beyond 


have  developed  herself.  Others  ask  indig- 
nantly how  she  could  know  herself  if  her  hus- 
band refused  to  let  her  be  herself.  But  every- 
body feels  that  the  subject  is  a  delicious  one. 

Those  of  the  people  who  have  seen  the  play 
before  very  kindly  explain  how  it  ends,  so  as 
to  help  the  rest  to  enjoy  it.  But  the  more  seri- 
ous-minded of  the  men  have  risen,  very  gently, 
and  are  sneaking  up  the  aisles.  Their  expres- 
sion is  stamped  with  deep  thought  as  if  ponder- 
ing over  the  play.  But  their  step  is  as  that  of 
leopards  on  the  march,  and  no  one  is  deceived 
as  to  their  purpose. 

The  music  continues.  The  discussion  goes 
on. 

The  leopards  come  stealing  back.  The  or- 
chestra boils  over  in  a  cadence  and  stops.  The 
theater  is  darkened  again.  The  footlights 
come  on  with  a  flash.  The  curtain  silently  lifts, 
and  it  is — 


27 


Act  II. — Six  Months  Later 

THE  programs  rustle.  The  people 
look  to  see  where  it  is.  And  they 
find  that  it  is  "An  Apartment  in 
Paris."  Notice  that  this  place 
which  is  used  in  every  problem  play  is  just 
called  An  Apartment.  It  is  not  called  Mr. 
Harding's  Apartment,  or  an  Apartment  for 
which  Mr.  Harding  pays  the  Rent.  Not  a  bit. 
It  is  just  an  Apartment.  Even  if  it  were  "A 
Apartment"  it  would  feel  easier.  But  "An 
Apartment" !!  The  very  words  give  the  au- 
dience a  delicious  shiver  of  uncomfortableness. 
When  the  curtain  rises  it  discloses  a  French 
maid  moving  about  the  stage  in  four-dollar  silk 
stockings.  She  is  setting  things  on  a  little  table, 
evidently  for  supper.  She  explains  this  in 
French  as  she  does  it,  so  as  to  make  it  clear. 

^^Bon!  la  serviette  de  monsieur!  bon!  la  sev' 
viette  de  madame,  bien — du  champagne,  bon! 
langouste  aux  champignons,  bien,  bon. — "  This 
is  all  the  French  she  knows,  poor  little  thing, 

28 


Their  expression  is  stamped  with  deep  thought. 


Behind  the  Beyond 


but  langouste  aux  champignons  beats  the  au- 
dience, so  she  is  all  right. 

Anyway,  this  supper  scene  has  to  come  in. 
It  is  symbolical.  You  can't  really  show  Amalfi 
and  Fiesole  and  the  orange  trees,  so  this  kind 
of  supper  takes  their  place. 

As  the  maid  moves  about  there  is  a  loud 
knock  at  the  cardboard  door  of  the  apartment. 
A  man  in  official  clothes  sticks  his  head  in.  He 
is  evidently  a  postal  special  messenger  because 
he  is  all  in  postal  attire  with  a  postal  glazed 
hat. 

"Monsieur  Arrding?"  he  says. 

"Oul" 

''Bon!    Unelettre:* 

"Merci,  monsieur."  He  goes  out.  The  au- 
dience feel  a  thrill  of  pride  at  having  learned 
French  and  being  able  to  follow  the  intense 
realism  of  this  dialogue.  The  maid  lays  the 
letter  on  the  supper  table. 

Just  as  she  does  it  the  door  opens  and  there 
enter  Mr.  Harding  and  Lady  Cicely.  Yes, 
them.  Both  of  them.  The  audience  catches 
it  like  a  flash.    They  live  here. 

29 


Behind  the  Beyond 


Lady  Cicely  throws  aside  her  cloak.  There 
is  great  gaiety  in  her  manner.  Her  face  is 
paler.  There  is  a  bright  spot  in  each  cheek. 
Her  eyes  are  very  bright. 

There  follows  the  well-known  supper  scene. 
Lady  Cicely  is  very  gay.  She  pours  champagne 
into  Mr.  Harding's  glass.  They  both  drink 
from  it.  She  asks  him  if  he  is  a  happy  boy 
now.  He  says  he  is.  She  runs  her  fingers 
through  his  hair.  He  kisses  her  on  the  bare 
shoulder.    This  is  also  symbolic. 

Lady  Cicely  rattles  on  about  Amalfi  and 
Fiesole.  She  asks  Mr.  Harding  if  he  remem- 
bers that  night  in  the  olive  trees  at  Santa  Clara, 
with  just  one  thrush  singing  in  the  night  sky. 
He  says  he  does.  He  remembers  the  very 
thrush.  You  can  see  from  the  talk  that  they 
have  been  all  over  Baedeker's  guide  to  the  Ad- 
riatic. 

At  times  Lady  Cicely's  animation  breaks. 
She  falls  into  a  fit  of  coughing  and  presses  her 
hand  to  her  side.  Mr.  Harding  looks  at  her 
apprehensively.     She  says,  "It  is  nothing,  silly 

30 


He  kisses  her  on  the  bare  shoulder. 


Behind  the  Beyond 


boy,  it  will  be  gone  in  a  moment."  It  is  only 
because  she  is  so  happy. 

Then,  quite  suddenly,  she  breaks  down  and 
falls  at  Mr.  Harding's  knees. 

"Oh,  Jack,  Jack,  I  can't  stand  it!  I  can't 
stand  it  any  longer.     It  is  choking  me  I" 

"My  darling,  what  is  it?" 

"This,  all  this,  it  is  choking  me — this  apart- 
ment, these  pictures,  the  French  maid,  all  of  it. 
I  can't  stand  it.  I'm  being  suffocated.  Oh, 
Jack,  take  me  away — take  me  somewhere 
where  it  is  quiet,  take  me  to  Norway  to  the 
great  solemn  hills  and  the  fjords " 

Then  suddenly  Mr.  Harding  sees  the  letter 
in  its  light  blue  envelope  lying  on  the  supper 
table.  It  has  been  lying  right  beside  him  for 
ten  minutes.  Everybody  in  the  theater  could 
see  it  and  was  getting  uncomfortable  about  it. 
He  clutches  it  and  tears  it  open.  There  is  a 
hunted  look  in  his  face  as  he  reads. 

"What  is  it?" 

"My  mother — good  God,  she  is  coming.  She 
31 


Behind  the  Beyond 


is  at  the  Bristol  and  is  coming  iiere.  Wliat  can 
I  do?" 

Lady  Cicely  is  quiet  now. 

"Does  she  know?" 

"Nothing,  nothing." 

"How  did  she  find  you?" 

"I  don't  know.  I  can't  imagine.  I  knew 
when  I  saw  in  the  papers  that  my  father  was 
dead  that  she  would  come  home.  But  I  kept 
back  the  address.  I  told  the  solicitors,  curse 
them,  to  keep  it  secret." 

Mr.  Harding  paces  the  stage  giving  an  imi- 
tation of  a  weak  man  trapped.  He  keeps  mut- 
tering, "What  can  I  do?" 

Lady  Cicely  speaks  very  firmly  and  proudly. 
"Jack." 

"What?" 

"There  is  only  one  thing  to  do.     Tell  her." 

Mr.  Harding,  aghast,  "Tell  her?" 

"Yes,  tell  her  about  our  love,  about  every- 
thing.   I  am  not  ashamed.    Let  her  judge  me." 

Mr.  Harding  sinks  into  a  chair.  He  keeps 
shivering  and  saying,  "I  tell  you,  I  can't;  I 
•an't.     She  wouldn't  understand."     The  letter 

32 


Behind  the  Beyond 


is  fluttering  in  his  hand.  His  face  is  contempt- 
ible. He  does  it  splendidly.  Lady  Cicely 
picks  the  letter  from  his  hand.  She  reads  it 
aloud,  her  eyes  widening  as  she  reads : 

Hotel  Bristol,  Paris. 
My  Darling  Boy: 

I  have  found  you  at  last — why  have  you  sought  to 
avoid  me.''  God  grant  there  is  nothing  wrong.  He 
is  dead,  the  man  I  taught  you  to  call  your  father, 
and  I  can  tell  you  all  now.     I  am  coming  to  you  this 

instant. 

Margaret  Harding. 

Lady  Cicely  reads,  her  eyes  widen  and  her 

voice  chokes  with  horror. 

She  advances  to  him  and  grips  his   hand. 

"What  does  it  mean,  Jack,  tell  me  what  does 

it  mean?" 

"Good  God,  Cicely,  don't  speak  like  that." 

"This — these  lines — about  your  father." 

"I  don't  know  what  it  means — I  don't  care — 

I  hated  him,  the  brute.    I'm  glad  he's  dead.    I 

don't  care  for  that.    But  she's  coming  here,  any 

minute,  and  I  can't  face  it." 

Lady  Cicely,  more  quietly,  "Jack,  tell  me, 

33 


Behind  the  Beyond 


did  my — did  Sir  John  Trevor  ever  talk  to  you 
about  your  father?" 

"No.    He  never  spoke  of  him." 

"Did  he  know  him?" 

"Yes — I  think  so — long  ago.  But  they  were 
enemies — Trevor  challenged  him  to  a  duel — 
over  some  woman — and  he  wouldn't  fight — the 
cur." 

Lady  Cicely  (dazed  and  aghast) — "I — un- 
derstand— it — now."  She  recovers  herself  and 
speaks  quickly. 

''Listen.  There  is  time  yet.  Go  to  the  hotel. 
Go  at  once.  Tell  your  mother  nothing.  Noth- 
ing, you  understand.  Keep  her  from  coming 
here.  Anything,  but  not  that.  Ernestine," — 
She  calls  to  the  maid  who  reappears  for  a  sec- 
ond— "a  taxi — at  once." 

She  hurriedly  gets  Harding's  hat  and  coat. 
The  stage  is  full  of  bustle.  There  is  a  great 
sense  of  hurry.  The  audience  are  in  an  agony 
for  fear  Ernestine  is  too  slow,  or  calls  a  four- 
wheel  cab  by  mistake.  If  the  play  is  really 
well  put  on,  you  can  presently  hear  the  taxi 
buzzing  outside.     Mr.  Harding  goes  to  kiss 

34 


Behind  the  Beyond 


Lady  Cicely.    She  puts  him  from  her  in  horror 
and  hastens  him  out. 

She  calls  the  maid.  "Ernestine,  quick,  put 
my  things,  anything,  into  a  valise." 

"Madame  is  going  away!" 

"Yes,  yes,  at  once." 

"Madame  will  not  eat?" 

"No,  no." 

"Madame  will  not  first  rest?"  (The  slow 
comprehension  of  these  French  maids  is  some- 
thing exasperating.)  "Madame  will  not  await 
monsieur? 

"Madame  will  not  first  eat,  nor  drink — no? 
Madame  will  not  sleep?" 

"No,  no — quick,  Ernestine.  Bring  me  what 
I  want.  Summon  a  fiacre.  I  shall  be  ready  in 
a  moment."  Lady  Cicely  passes  through  a  side 
door  into  an  inner  room. 

She  is  scarcely  gone  when  Mrs.  Harding  en- 
ters. She  is  a  woman  about  forty-five,  still  very 
beautiful.    She  is  dressed  in  deep  black. 

(The  play  is  now  moving  very  fast.  You 
have  to  sit  tight  to  follow  it  all.) 

35 


Behind  the  Beyond 


She  speaks  to  Ernestine.  "Is  this  Mr. 
Harding's  apartment?" 

"Yes,  madame." 

"Is  he  here?"     She  looks  about  her. 

"No,  madame,  he  is  gone  this  moment  in  a 
taxi — to  the  Hotel  Bristol,  I  heard  him  say.'* 

Mrs.  Harding,  faltering.  "Is — any  one — 
here?" 

"No,  madame,  no  one — milady  was  here  a 
moment  ago.  She,  too,  has  gone  out."  (This 
is  a  lie  but  of  course  the  maid  is  a  French 
maid.) 

"Then  it  is  true — there  is  some  one " 

She  is  just  saying  this  when  the  bell  rings,  the 
door  opens  and  there  enters — Sir  John  Trevor. 

"You  1"  says  Mrs.  Harding. 

"I  am  too  late  I"  gasps  Sir  John. 

She  goes  to  him  tremblingly — "After  all 
these  years,"  she  says. 

"It  is  a  long  time." 

"You  have  not  changed." 

She  has  taken  his  hands  and  is  looking  into 
his  face,  and  she  goes  on  speaking.  "I  have 
thought  of  you  so  often  in  all  these  bitter  years 

36 


Behind  the  Beyond 


■ — it  sustained  me  even  at  the  worst — and  I 
knew,  John,  that  it  was  for  my  sake  that  you 
had  never  married " 

Then,  as  she  goes  on  talking,  the  audience 
realize  with  a  thrill  that  Mrs.  Harding  does 
not  know  that  Sir  John  married  two  years  ago, 
that  she  has  come  home,  as  she  thought,  to  the 
man  who  loved  her,  and,  more  than  that,  they 
get  another  thrill  when  they  realize  that  Lady 
Cicely  is  learning  it  too.  She  has  pushed  the 
door  half  open  and  is  standing  there  unseen, 
listening.  She  wears  a  hat  and  cloak;  there  is 
a  folded  letter  in  her  hand — her  eyes  are  wide. 
Mrs.  Harding  continues: 

"And  now,  John,  I  want  your  help,  only  you 
can  help  me,  you  are  so  strong — my  Jack,  I 
must  save  him."  She  looks  about  the  room. 
Something  seems  to  overcome  her.  "Oh,  John, 
this  place — his  being  here  like  this — it  seems  a 
judgment  on  us." 

The  audience  are  getting  it  fast  now.  And 
when  Mrs.  Harding  speaks  of  "our  awful  mo- 
ment of  folly,"   "the  retribution  of  our  own 

37 


Behind  the  Beyond 


sins,"  they  grasp  It  and  shiver  with  the  luxury 
of  It. 

After  that  when  Mrs.  Harding  says:  "Our 
wretched  boy,  we  must  save  him," — they  all 
know  why  she  says  "our." 

She  goes  on  more  calmly.  "I  realized.  I 
knew — he  Is  not  alone  here." 

Sir  John's  voice  is  quiet,  almost  hollow.  "He 
is  not  alone." 

"But  this  woman — can  you  not  deal  with  her 
— persuade  her — beg  her  for  my  sake — bribe 
her  to  leave  my  boy?" 

Lady  Cicely  steps  out.  "There  is  no  bribe 
needed.  I  am  going.  If  I  have  wron^rcd  him, 
and  you,  it  shall  be  atoned." 

Sir  John  has  given  no  sign.  He  is  standing 
stunned.  She  turns  to  him.  "I  have  heard  and 
know  now.  I  cannot  ask  for  pity.  But  when 
I  am  gone — when  it  is  over — I  want  you  to  give 
him  this  letter — and  I  want  you,  you  two,  to — 
to  be  as  if  I  had  never  lived." 

She  lays  the  letter  in  his  hand.  Then  with- 
out a  sign,  Lady  Cicely  passes  out.  There  is  a 
great  stillness  in  the  house.    Mrs.  Harding  has 

38 


Behind  the  Beyond 


watched  Lady  Cicely  and  Sir  John  In  amaze- 
ment. Sir  John  has  sunk  into  a  chair.  She 
breaks  out,  "John,  for  God's  sake  what  does  it 
mean — this  woman — speak — there  is  some- 
thing awful,  I  must  know." 

"Yes,  you  must  know.  It  is  fate.  Margaret, 
you  do  not  know  all.  Two  years  ago  I  mar- 
ried  " 


"But  this  woman,  this  woman- 
**She  is — she  was — my  wife." 


And  at  this  moment  Harding  breaks  into  the 

room,     "Cicely,   Cicely,   I  was  too   late " 

He  sees  the  others.      "Mother,"  he    says    in 

agony,     "and    you "       He    looks     about. 

"Where  is  she?  What  is  happening?  I  must 
know " 

Sir  John,  as  if  following  a  mechanical  im- 
pulse, has  handed  Harding  the  letter.  He 
tears  It  open  and  reads: 

''Dearest,  I  am  going  away,  to  die.  It  can- 
not be  long  now.  The  doctor  told  me  to-day. 
That  was  why  I  couldn't  speak  or  explain  it  to 

39 


Behind  the  Beyond 


you  and  was  so  strange  at  supper.  But  I  am 
glad  now.     Good-by." 

Harding  turns  upon  Sir  John  with  the  snarl 
of  a  wolf.  "What  have  you  done?  Why  have 
you  driven  her  away?  What  right  had  you 
to  her,  you  devil?  I  loved  her — She  was 
mine " 

He  had  seized  a  pointed  knife  from  the  sup- 
per table.  His  shoulders  are  crouched — he  is 
about  to  spring  on  Sir  John.  Mrs.  Harding 
has  thrown  herself  between  them. 

"Jack,  Jack,  you  mustn't  strike." 

"Out  of  the  way,  I  say,  I'll " 

"Jack,  Jack,  you  mustn't  strike.  Can't  you 
understand?     Don't  you  see — what  it  is.  .  .  ." 

"What  do  you  mean — stand  back  from  me." 

"Jack  he — is — your — father." 

The  knife  clatters  to  the  floor.    "My  Godl" 

And  then  the  curtain  falls — and  there's  a 
burst  of  applause  and,  in  accordance  with  all 
the  best  traditions  of  the  stage,  one  moment 
later.  Lady  Cicely  and  Mr.  Harding  and  Sir 
John  and  Mrs.  Harding  are  all  bowing  and 

40 


Behind  the  Beyond 


smiling  like  anything,  and  even  the  little 
French  maid  sneaks  on  in  a  corner  of  the  stage 
and  simpers. 

Then  the  orchestra  plays  and  the  leopards 
sneak  out  and  the  people  in  the  boxes  are  all 
talking  gayly  to  show  that  they're  not  the  least 
affected.  And  everybody  is  wondering  how  it 
will  come  out,  or  rather  how  it  can  possibly 
come  out  at  all,  because  some  of  them  explain 
that  it's  all  wrong,  and  just  as  they  are  making 
if.  clear  that  there  shouldn't  be  any  third  act, 
the  curtain  goes  up  and  it's ^ 


Act  III.     Three    Months  Later 

THE  curtain  rises  on  a  drawing-room 
in  Mrs.  Harding's  house  in  London. 
Mrs.  Harding  is  sitting  at  a  table. 
She  is  sorting  out  parcels.  There 
is  a  great  air  of  quiet  about  the  scene.  The 
third  act  of  a  problem  play  always  has  to  be 
very  quiet.  It  is  like  a  punctured  football  with 
the  wind  going  out  of  it.  The  play  has  to  just 
poof  itself  out  noiselessly. 

For  instance,  this  is  the  way  it  is  done. 
Does  Mrs.  Harding  start  to  talk  about  Lady 
Cicely  and  Jack,  and  Paris?  Not  a  bit.  She  is 
simply  looking  over  the  parcels  and  writing 
names  and  talking  to  herself  so  that  the  audi- 
ence can  get  the  names 

"For  the  Orphans'  Home — poor  little 
things.  For  the  Foundlings'  Protection  So- 
ciety. For  the  Lost  Infants'  Preservation 
League"  (a  deep  sigh) — "poor,  poor  chil- 
dren." 

Now  what  is  all  this  about  ?    What  has  this 
42 


Behind  the  Beyond 


to  do  with  the  play?  Why,  don't  you  see  that 
it  is  the  symbol  of  philanthropy,  of  gentleness, 
of  melancholy  sadness?  The  storm  is  over  and 
there  is  nothing  in  Mrs.  Harding's  heart  but 
pity.  Don't  you  see  that  she  is  dressed  in 
deeper  black  than  ever,  and  do  you  notice  that 
look  on  her  face — that  third-act  air — that  resig- 
nation? 

Don't  you  see  that  the  play  is  really  all 
over?    They're  just  letting  the  wind  out  of  it. 

A  man  announces  "Sir  John  Trevor." 

Sir  John  steps  in.  Mrs.  Harding  goes  to 
meet  him  with  both  hands  out. 

"My  dear,  dear  friend,"  she  says  in  rich, 
sad  tones. 

Sir  John  is  all  in  black.  He  is  much  aged, 
but  very  firm  and  very  quiet.  You  can  feel 
that  he's  been  spending  the  morning  with  the 
committee  of  the  Homeless  Newsboys'  League 
or  among  the  Directorate  of  the  Lost  Waifs' 
Encouragement  Association.  In  fact  he  be- 
gins to  talk  of  these  things  at  once.  The  peo- 
ple who  are  not  used  to  third  acts  are  wonder- 

43 


Behind  the  Beyond 


Ing  what  it  is  all  about.  The  real  playgoers 
know  that  this  is  atmosphere. 

Then  presently 

"Tea?"  says  Mrs.  Harding,  "shall  I  ring?" 

"Pray  do,"  says  Sir  John.  He  seats  him- 
self with  great  weariness.  The  full  melancholy 
of  the  third  act  is  on  him.  The  tea  which 
has  been  made  for  three  acts  is  brought  in. 
They  drink  it  and  it  begins  to  go  to  their 
heads.  The  "atmosphere"  clears  off  just  a 
little. 

"You  have  news,  I  know,"  says  Mrs.  Hard- 
ing, "you  have  seen  him?" 

"I  have  seen  him." 

"And  he  is  gone  ?" 

"Yes,  he  has  sailed,"  says  Sir  John.  "He 
went  on  board  last  night,  only  a  few  hours 
after  my  return  to  London.  I  saw  him  off. 
Poor  Jack.  Gatherson  has  been  most  kind. 
They  will  take  him  into  the  embassy  at  Lima. 
There,  please  God,  he  can  begin  life  again. 
The  Peruvian  Ambassador  has  promised  to 
do  all  in  his  power." 

Sir  John  sighs  deeply  and  is  silent.  This  to 
44 


Behind  the  Beyond 


let  the  fact  soak  Into  the  audience  that  Jack 
has  gone  to  Peru.  Any  reasonable  person 
would  have  known  it.  Where  else  could  he 
go  to? 

"He  will  do  well  in  Peru,"  says  Mrs.  Hard- 
ing. She  is  imitating  a  woman  being  very 
brave. 

"Yes,  I  trust  so,"  says  Sir  John.  There  is 
silence  again.  In  fact  the  whole  third  act  is 
diluted  with  thirty  per  cent,  of  silence.  Pres- 
ently Mrs.  Harding  speaks  again  in  a  low 
tone. 

"You  have  other  news,  I  know." 

"I  have  other  news." 

"Of  her?" 

"Yes.  I  have  been  to  Switzerland.  I  have 
seen  the  cure — a  good  man.  He  has  told  me 
all  there  is  to  tell.  I  found  him  at  the  hospice, 
busy  with  his  oeuvre  de  bienfaisance.  He  led 
me  to  her  grave." 

Sir  John  is  bowed  in  deep  silence. 

Lady  Cicely  dead!  Everybody  in  the  thea- 
ter gasps.  Deadl  But  what  an  unfair  way 
to  kill  her !    To  face  an  open  death  on  the  stage 

45 


Behind  the  Beyond 


in  fair  hand  to  hand  acting  is  one  thing,  but 
this  new  system  of  dragging  off  the  characters 
to  Switzerland  between  the  acts,  and  then  re- 
turning and  saying  that  they  are  dead  is  quite 
another. 

Presently  Mrs.  Harding  speaks,  very  softly. 
"And  you?  You  will  take  up  your  work  here 
again  f 

"No;  I  am  going  away." 

"Going?" 

"Yes,  far  away.  I  am  going  to  Kafoonis- 
tan." 

Mrs.  Harding  looks  at  him  in  pain.  "To 
Kafoonistan?" 

"Yes.  To  Kafoonistan.  There's  work  there 
for  me  to  do." 

There  is  silence  again.  Then  Sir  John 
speaks.  "And  you?  You  will  settle  down 
here  in  London?" 

"No.    I  am  going  away." 

"Going  away?" 

"Yes,  back  to  Balla  Walla.  I  want  to  be 
46 


Behind  the  Beyond 


alone.  I  want  to  forget.  I  want  to  think. 
I  want  to  try  to  realize." 

"You  are  going  alone?" 

"Yes,  quite  alone.  But  I  shall  not  feel 
alone  when  I  get  there.  The  Maharanee  will 
receive  me  with  open  arms.  And  my  life  will 
be  useful  there.  The  women  need  me;  I  will 
teach  them  to  read,  to  sew,  to  sing." 

"Mrs.  Harding — Margaret — you  must  not 
do  this.  You  have  sacrificed  your  life  enough 
— you  have  the  right  to  live " 

There  is  emotion  in  Sir  John's  tone.  It  is 
very  rough  on  him  to  find  his  plan  of  going 
to  Kafoonistan  has  been  outdone  by  Mrs. 
Harding's  going  to  Balla  Walla.  She  shakes 
her  head. 

"No,  no;  my  life  is  of  no  account  now.  But 
you,  John,  you  are  needed  here,  the  country 
needs  you.     Men  look  to  you  to  lead  them." 

Mrs.  Harding  would  particularize  if  she 
could,  but  she  can't  just  for  the  minute  remem- 
ber what  it  is  Sir  John  can  lead  them  to.  Sir 
John  shakes  his  head. 

"No,  no;  my  work  lies  there  in  Kafoonistan. 
47 


Behind  the  Beyond 


There  is  a  man's  work  to  be  done  there.  The 
tribes  are  ignorant,  uncivilized." 

This  dialogue  goes  on  for  some  time.  Mrs. 
Harding  keeps  shaking  her  head  and  saying 
that  Sir  John  must  not  go  to  Kafoonistan,  and 
Sir  John  says  she  must  not  go  to  Balla  Walla. 
He  protests  that  he  wants  to  work  and  she 
claims  that  she  wants  to  try  to  think  clearly. 
But  it  is  all  a  bluff.  They  are  not  going. 
Neither  of  them.  And  everybody  knows  it. 
Presently  Mrs.  Harding  says: 

"You  will  think  of  me  sometimes?" 

"I  shall  never  forget  you." 

"I'm  glad  of  that." 

"Wherever  I  am,  I  shall  think  of  you — out 
there  in  the  deserts,  or  at  night,  alone  there 
among  the  great  silent  hills  with  only  the  stars 
overhead,  I  shall  think  of  you.  Your  face  will 
guide  me  wherever  I  am." 

He  has  taken  her  hand. 

"And  you,"  he  says,  "you  will  think  of  me 
sometimes  in  Balla  Walla?" 

"Yes,  always.  All  day  while  I  am  with  the 
Maharanee  and  her  women,  and  at  night,  the 

4S 


Behind  the  Beyond 


great  silent  Indian  night  when  all  the  palace 
is  asleep  and  there  is  heard  nothing  but  the 
sounds  of  the  jungle,  the  cry  of  the  hyena 
and  the  bray  of  the  laughing  jackass,  I  shall 
seem  to  hear  your  voice." 

She  is  much  moved.  She  rises,  clenches  her 
hands  and  then  adds,  "I  have  heard  it  so  for 
five  and  twenty  years." 

He  has  moved  to  her. 

"Margaret!" 

"John  I" 

"I  cannot  let  you  go,  your  life  lies  here — ^with 
me — next  my  heart — I  want  your  help,  your 
love,  here  inside  the  beyond." 

And  as  he  speaks  and  takes  her  in  his  arms, 
the  curtain  sinks  upon  them,  rises,  falls,  rises, 
and  then  sinks  again  asbestos  and  all,  and  the 
play  is  over.  The  lights  are  on,  the  audience 
rises  in  a  body  and  puts  on  its  wraps.  All  over 
the  theater  you  can  hear  the  words  "perfectly 
rotten,"  "utterly  untrue,"  and  so  on.  The  gen- 
eral judgment  seems  to  be  that  it  is  a  perfectly 
rotten  play,  but  very  strong. 

They  are  saying  this  as  they  surge  out  in 
Ad 


Behind  the  Beyond 


great  waves  of  furs  and  silks,  with  black  crush 
hats  floating  on  billows  of  white  wraps  among 
the  foam  of  gossamer  scarfs.  Through  it  all 
is  the  squawk  of  the  motor  horn,  the  call  of 
the  taxi  numbers  and  the  inrush  of  the  fresh 
night  air. 

But  just  inside  the  theater,  in  the  office,  is 
a  man  in  a  circus  waistcoat  adding  up  dollars 
with  a  blue  pencil,  and  he  knows  that  the  play 
is  all  right. 


He  takes  her  in  his  arms. 


FAMILIAR     INCIDENTS 


/. —  With  the  Photographer 

I  WANT  my  photograph  taken,"  I  said. 
The  photographer  looked  at  me  with- 
out enthusiasm.  He  was  a  drooping 
man  in  a  gray  suit,  with  the  dim  eye  of 
a  natural  scientist.  But  there  is  no  need  to  de- 
scribe him.  Everybody  knows  what  a  photog- 
rapher is  like. 

"Sit  there,"  he  said,  "and  wait." 

"I  waited  an  hour.  I  read  the  Ladies  Com,' 
panion  for  19 12,  the  Girls  Magazine  for  1902 
and  the  Infants  Journal  for  1888.  I  began 
to  see  that  I  had  done  an  unwarrantable  thing 
in  breaking  in  on  the  privacy  of  this  man's 
scientific  pursuits  with  a  face  like  mine. 

After  an  hour  the  photographer  opened  the 
inner  door. 

"Come  in,"  he  said  severely. 

I  went  into  the  studio. 

"Sit  down,"  said  the  photographer. 

I  sat  down  in  a  beam  of    sunlight    filtered 

53 


Familiar  Incidents 


through  a  sheet  of  factory  cotton  hung  against 
a  frosted  skylight. 

The  photographer  rolled  a  machine  into  the 
middle  of  the  room  and  crawled  into  it  from 
'"behind. 

He  was  only  in  it  a  second, — just  time 
enough  for  one  look  at  me, — and  then  he  was 
out  again,  tearing  at  the  cotton  sheet  and  the 
window  panes  with  a  hooked  stick,  apparently 
frantic  for  light  and  air. 

Then  he  crawled  back  into  the  machine  again 
and  drew  a  little  black  cloth  over  himself.  This 
time  he  was  very  quiet  in  there.  I  knew  that 
he  was  praying  and  I  kept  still. 

When  the  photographer  came  out  at  last, 
he  looked  very  grave  and  shook  his  head. 

"The  face  is  quite  wrong,"  he  said. 

"I  know,"  I  answered  quietly;  "I  have  al- 
ways known  it." 

He  sighed. 

"I  think,"  he  said,  "the  face  would  be  bet- 
ter three-quarters  full." 

"I'm  sure  it  would,"  I  said  enthusiastically, 
for  I  was  glad  to  find  that  the  man  had  such 

54 


Familiar  Incidents 


a  human  side  to  him.  "So  would  yours.  In 
fact,"  I  continued,  "how  many  faces  one  sees 
that  are  apparently  hard,  narrow,  limited,  but 
the  minute  you  get  them  three-quarters  full 
they  get  wide,  large,  almost  boundless  in " 

But  the  photographer  had  ceased  to  listen. 
He  came  over  and  took  my  head  in  his  hands 
and  twisted  it  sideways.  I  thought  he  meant 
to  kiss  me,  and  I  closed  my  eyes. 

But  I  was  wrong. 

He  twisted  my  face  as  far  as  it  would  go 
and  then  stood  looking  at  it. 

He  sighed  again. 

"I  don't  like  the  head,"   he  said. 

Then  he  went  back  to  the  machine  and  took 
another  look. 

"Open  the  mouth  a  little,"  he  said. 

I  started  to  do  so. 

"Close  it,"  he  added  quickly. 

Then  he  looked  again. 

"The  ears  are  bad,^^  he  said;  "droop  them  a 
little  more.  Thank  you.  Now  the  eyes.  Roll 
them  in  under  the  lids.  Put  the  hands  on  the 
knees,  please,  and  turn  the  face  just  a  little 

55 


Familiar  Incidents 


upward.  Yes,  that's  better.  Now  just  expand 
the  lungs!  So!  And  hump  the  neck — that's 
it — and  just  contract  the  waist — ha  ! — and  twist 
the  hip  up  toward  the  elbow — now!  I  still 
don't  quite  like  the  face,  it's  just  a  trifle  too 
full,  but " 

I  swung  myself  round  on  the  stool. 

"Stop,"  I  said  with  emotion  but,  I  think, 
with  dignity.  "This  face  is  my  face.  It  is  not 
yours,  it  is  mine.  I've  lived  with  it  for  forty 
years  and  I  know  its  faults.  I  know  it's  out 
of  drawing.  I  know  it  wasn't  made  for  me, 
but  it's  my  face,  the  only  one  I  have — "  I 
was  conscious  of  a  break  in  my  voice  but  I 
went  on — "such  as  it  is,  I've  learned  to  love  it. 
And  this  is  my  mouth,  not  yours.  These  ears 
are  mine,  and  if  your  machine  is  too  narrow — " 
Here  I  started  to  rise  from  the  seat. 

Snick ! 

The  photographer  had  pulled  a  string.  The 
photograph  taken.  I  could  see  the  machine 
still  staggering  from  the  shock. 

"I  think,"  said  the  photographer,  pursing 
56 


Familiar  Incidents 


his  lips  In  a  pleased  smile,  "that  I  caught  the 
features  just  in  a  moment  of  animation." 

"So!"  I  said  bitingly, — "features,  eh?  You 
didn't  think  I  could  animate  them,  I  suppose? 
But  let  me  see  the  picture." 

"Oh,  there's  nothing  to  see  yet,"  he  said, 
"I  have  to  develop  the  negative  first.  Come 
back  on  Saturday  and  I'll  let  you  see  a  proof 
of  it." 

On  Saturday  I  went  back. 

The  photographer  beckoned  me  in.  I 
thought  he  seemed  quieter  and  graver  than  be- 
fore. I  think,  too,  there  was  a  certain  pride 
in  his  manner. 

He  unfolded  the  proof  of  a  large  photo- 
graph, and  we  both  looked  at  it  in  silence. 

"Is  it  me?"  I  asked. 

"Yes,"  he  said  quietly,  "it  is  you,"  and  we 
went  on  looking  at  it. 

"The  eyes,"  I  said  hesitatingly,  "don't  look 
very  much  like  mine." 

"Oh,  no,"  he  answered,  "I've  retouched 
them.    They  come  out  splendidly,  don't  they?" 

57 


Familiar  Incidents 


"Fine,"  I  said,  "but  surely  my  eyebrows  are 
not  like  that?" 

"No,"  said  the  photographer,  with  a  mo- 
mentary glance  at  my  face,  "the  eyebrows  are 
removed.  We  have  a  process  now — the  Del- 
phide — for  putting  in  new  ones.  You'll  notice 
here  where  we've  applied  it  to  carry  the  hair 
away  from  the  brow.  I  don't  Uke  the  hair 
low  on  the  skull." 

"Oh,  you  don't,  don't  you?"  I  said. 

"No,"  he  went  on,  "I  don't  care  for  it.  I 
like  to  get  the  hair  clear  back  to  the  superficies 
and  make  out  a  new  brow  line." 

"What  about  the  mouth?"  I  said  with  a  bit- 
terness that  was  lost  on  the  photographer;  "is 
that  mine?" 

"It's  adjusted  a  little,"  he  said,  "yours  is 
too  low.     I  found  I  couldn't  use  it." 

"The  ears,  though,"  I  said,  "strike  me  as 
a  good  likeness;  they're  just  like  mine." 

"Yes,"  said  the  photographer  thoughtfully, 
"that's  so;  but  I  can  fix  that  all  right  in  the 
print.     We  have  a  process  new — the  Sulphide 

S8 


"Is  it  me?^ 


Familiar  Incidents 


— for    removing   the    ears   entirely.      I'll   sec 

if " 

"Listen!"  I  interrupted,  drawing  myself  up 
and  animating  my  features  to  their  full  extent 
and  speaking  with  a  withering  scorn  that  should 
have  blasted  the  man  on  the  spot.  "Listen  I  I 
came  here  for  a  photograph — a  picture — some- 
thing which  (mad  though  it  seems)  would  have 
looked  like  me.  I  wanted  something  that  would 
depict  my  face  as  Heaven  gave  it  to  me,  hum- 
ble though  the  gift  may  have  been.  I  wanted 
something  that  my  friends  might  keep  after 
my  death,  to  reconcile  them  to  my  loss.  It 
seems  that  I  was  mistaken.  What  I  wanted 
is  no  longer  done.  Go  on,  then,  with  your 
brutal  work.  Take  your  negative,  or  what- 
ever it  is  you  call  it, — dip  it  in  sulphide,  bro- 
mide, oxide,  cowhide, — anything  you  like, — 
remove  the  eyes,  correct  the  mouth,  adjust  the 
face,  restore  the  lips,  reanimate  the  necktie 
and  reconstruct  the  waistcoat.  Coat  it  with 
an  inch  of  gloss,  shade  it,  emboss  it,  gild  it, 
till  even  you  acknowledge  that  it  is  finished 

59 


Familiar  Incidents 


Then  when  you  have  done  all  that — keep  it 
for  yourself   and   your   friends.      They  may 
value  it.    To  me  it  is  but  a  worthless  bauble." 
I  broke  into  tears  and  left. 


ao 


//. — The  Dentist  and  the   Gas 

I  THINK,"  said  the  dentist,  stepping  out- 
side again,  "I'd  better  give  you  gas." 
Then  he  moved  aside  and  hummed  an 
air  from  a  light  opera  while  he  mixed 
up  cement: 

I  sat  up  in  my  shroud. 
"Gas!"  I  said. 

"Yes,"  he  repeated,  "gas,  or  else  ether  or 
a  sulphuric  anesthetic,  or  else  beat  you  into 
insensibility  with  a  club,  or  give  you  three 
thousand  bolts  of  electricity." 

These  may  not  have  been  his  exact  words. 
But  they  convey  the  feeling  of  them  very 
nicely. 

I  could  see  the  light  of  primitive  criminality 
shining  behind  the  man's  spectacles. 

And  to  think  that  this  was  my  fault — the  re- 
sult of  my  own  reckless  neglect.  I  had  grown 
so  used  to  sitting  back  dozing  in  my  shroud 
in  the  dentist's  chair,  listening  to  the  twittering 

6i 


Familiar  Incidents 


of  the  birds  outside,  my  eyes  closed  in  the 
sweet  half  sleep  of  perfect  security,  that  the 
old  apprehensiveness  and  mental  agony  had 
practically  all  gone. 

He  didn't  hurt  me,  and  I  knew  it. 

I  had  grown — I  know  it  sounds  mad — almost 
to  like  him. 

For  a  time  I  had  kept  up  the  appearance 
of  being  hurt  every  few  minutes,  just  as  a  pre- 
caution. Then  even  that  had  ceased  and  I  had 
dropped  into  vainglorious  apathy. 

It  was  this,  of  course,  which  had  infuriated 
the  dentist.  He  meant  to  reassert  his  power. 
He  knew  that  nothing  but  gas  could  rouse  me 
out  of  my  lethargy  and  he  meant  to  apply  it — 
either  gas  or  some  other  powerful  pain  stim- 
ulant. 

So,  as  soon  as  he  said  'V^-^»"  ^Y  senses  were 
alert  in  a  moment. 

"When  are  you  going  to  do  it?"  I  said  in 
horror. 

"Right  now,  if  you  like,"  he  answered. 

His  eyes  were  glittering  with  what  the  Ger- 
mans call  Blutlust.    All  dentists  have  it. 

62 


Familiar  Incidents 


I  could  see  that  if  I  took  my  eye  off  him 
for  a  moment  he  might  spring  at  me,  gas  in 
hand,  and  throttle  me. 

"No,  not  now,  I  can't  stay  now,"  I  said, 
"I  have  an  appointment,  a  whole  lot  of  ap- 
pointments, urgent  ones,  the  most  urgent  I  ever 
had."    I  was  unfastening  my  shroud  as  I  spoke. 

"Well,  then,  to-morrow,"  said  the  dentist. 

"No,"  I  said,  "to-morrow  is  Saturday.  And 
Saturday  is  a  day  when  I  simply  can't  take  gas. 
If  I  take  gas,  even  the  least  bit  of  gas  on  a 
Saturday,  I  find  it's  misunderstood " 

"Monday  then." 

"Monday,  I'm  afraid,  won't  do.  It's  a  bad 
day  for  me — worse  than  I  can  explain." 

"Tuesday?"  said  the  dentist. 

"Not  Tuesday,"  I  answered.  "Tuesday  is 
the  worst  day  of  all.  On  Tuesday  my  church 
society  meets,  and  I  must  go  to  it." 

I  hadn't  been  near  it,  in  reality,  for  three 
years,  but  suddenly  I  felt  a  longing  to  at- 
tend it. 

"On  Wednesday,"  I  went  on,  speaking  hur- 
riedly and  wildly,  "I  have  another  appointment, 

63 


Familiar  Incidents 


a  swimming  club,  and  on  Thursday  two  ap- 
pointments, a  choral  society  and  a  funeral.  On 
Friday  I  have  another  funeral.  Saturday  is 
market  day.  Sunday  is  washing  day.  Monday 
is  drying  day " 

"Hold  on,"  said  the  dentist,  speaking  very 
firmly.  ''You  come  to-morrow  morning:  I'll 
write  the  engagement  for  ten  o'clock." 

I  think  it  must  have  been  hypnotism. 

Before  I  knew  it,  I  had  said  "Yes." 

I  went  out. 

On  the  street  I  met  a  man  I  knew. 

"Have  you  ever  taken  gas  from  a  dentist?" 
I  asked. 

"Oh,  yes,"  he  said;  "it's  nothing." 

Soon  after  I  met  another  man. 

"Have  you  ever  taken  gas?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  certainly,"  he  answered,  "it's  nothing, 
nothing  at  all." 

Altogether  I  asked  about  fifty  people  that 
day  about  gas,  and  they  all  said  that  it  was 
absolutely  nothing.  When  I  said  that  I  was 
to  take  it  to-morrow,  they  showed  no  concern 
whatever.    I  looked  in  their  faces  for  traces  of 

64 


Familiar  Incidents 


anxiety.     There  weren't  any.     They  all  said 
that  it  wouldn't  hurt  me,  that  it  was  nothing. 

So  then  I  was  glad  because  I  knew  that  gas 
was  nothing. 

It  began  to  seem  hardly  worth  while  to  keep 
the  appointment.  Why  go  all  the  way  down- 
town for  such  a  mere  nothing? 

But  I  did  go. 

I  kept  the  appointment. 

What  followed  was  such  an  absolute  nothing 
that  I  shouldn't  bother  to  relate  it  except  for 
the  sake  of  my  friends. 

The  dentist  was  there  with  two  assistants. 
All  three  had  white  coats  on,  as  rigid  as  naval 
uniforms. 

I  forget  whether  they  carried  revolvers. 

Nothing  could  exceed  their  quiet  courage. 
Let  me  pay  them  that  tribute. 

I  was  laid  out  in  my  shroud  in  a  long  chair 
and  tied  down  to  it  (I  think  I  was  tied  down; 
perhaps  I  was  fastened  with  nails).  This  part 
of  it  was  a  mere  nothing.  It  simply  felt  like 
being  tied  down  by  three  strong  men  armed 
with  pinchers. 

6s 


Familiar  Incidents 


After  that  a  gas  tank  and  a  pump  were  placed 
beside  me  and  a  set  of  rubber  tubes  fastened 
tight  over  my  mouth  and  nose.  Ev^en  those 
who  have  never  taken  gas  can  realize  how  ridic- 
ulously simple  this  is. 

Then  they  began  pumping  in  gas.  The  sensa- 
tion of  this  part  of  it  I  cannot,  unfortunately, 
recall.  It  happened  that  just  as  they  began  to 
administer  the  gas,  I  fell  asleep.  I  don't  quite 
know  why.  Perhaps  I  was  overtired.  Perhaps 
it  was  the  simple  home  charm  of  the  surround- 
ings, the  soft  drowsy  hum  of  the  gas  pump,  the 
twittering  of  the  dentists  in  the  trees — did  I 
say  the  trees?  No;  of  course  they  weren't  in 
the  trees — imagine  dentists  in  the  trees — ha  I 
ha  I  Here,  take  off  this  gaspipe  from  my  face 
till  I  laugh — really  I  just  want  to  laugh — only 
to  laugh 

Well, — that's  what  it  felt  like. 

Meanwhile  they  were  operating. 

Of  course  I  didn't  feel  it.     All  I  felt  was 

that  someone  dealt  me  a  powerful  blow  in  the 

face  with  a  sledgehammer.     After  that  some- 

66 


I  did  go ...  I  kept  the  appointment. 


Familiar  Incidents 


body  took  a  pickax  and  cracked  in  my  jaw 
with  it.    That  was  all. 

It  was  a  mere  nothing.  I  felt  at  the  time 
that  a  man  who  objects  to  a  few  taps  on  the 
face  with  a  pickax  is  overcritical. 

I  didn't  happen  to  wake  up  till  they  had 
practically  finished.  So  I  really  missed  the 
whole  thing. 

The  assistants  had  gone,  and  the  dentist 
was  mixing  up  cement  and  humming  airs  from 
light  opera  just  like  old  times.  It  made  the 
world  seem  a  bright  place. 

I  went  home  with  no  teeth.  I  only  meant 
them  to  remove  one,  but  I  realized  that  they 
had  taken  them  all  out.     Still  it  didn't  matter. 

Not  long  after  I  received  my  bill.  I  was 
astounded  at  the  nerve  of  it!  For  administer- 
ing gas,  debtor,  so  much;  for  removing  teeth, 
debtor,  so  much; — and  so  on. 


^ 


Familiar  Incidents 


In  return  I  sent  in  my  bill: 

Dr.  William  Jaws 

DEBTOR 

To  mental  agony $50.00 

To  gross  lies  in  regard  to  the  noth- 
ingness  of   gas 100.00 

To  putting  me  under  gas 50.00 

To  having  fun  with  me  under  gas.  100.00 

To  Brilliant  Ideas,  occurred  to  me 

under  gas  and  lost 100.00 

Grand  Total $400.00 

My  bill  has  been  contested  and  is  in  the 
hands  of  a  solicitor.  The  matter  will  prove,  I 
understand,  a  test  case  and  will  go  to  the  final 
courts.  If  the  judges  have  toothache  during 
the  trial,  I  shall  win. 


68 


III. — My  Lost  Opportunities 

THE  other  day  I    took  a  walk  with  a 
real  estate  man.     Out  in  the  sub- 
urbs he  leaned  over  the  wooden 
fence  of  an  empty  lot  and  waved 
his  hand  at  it. 

"There's  a  lot,"  he  said,  "that  we  sold  last 
week  for  half  a  million  dollars." 
"Did  you  really  1"  I  exclaimed. 
"Yes,"   he  said,    "and  do  you    know    that 
twenty-five  years   ago  you  could  have  picked 
that  up  for  fifty  thousand!" 

"What,"  I  said,  "do  you  mean  to  say  that 
I  could  have  had  all  that  beautiful  grass  and 
those  mullin  stalks  for  fifty  thousand  dollars?" 
"I  do." 

"You  mean  that  when  I  was  a  student  at 
college,  feeding  on  four  dollars  a  week,  this 
opportunity  was  knocking  at  the  door  and  I 
missed  it?" 

I  turned  my  head  away  in  bitterness  as  I 
69 


Familiar  Incidents 


thought  of  my  own  folly.  Why  had  I  never 
happened  to  walk  out  this  way  with  fifty  thou- 
sand dollars  in  my  pocket  and  buy  all  this 
beautiful  mud? 

The  real  estate  man  smiled  complacently  at 
my  grief. 

"I  can  show  you  more  than  that,"  he  said. 
"Do  you  see  that  big  stretch  of  empty  ground 
out  there  past  that  last  fence?" 

"Yes,  yes,"  I  said  excitedly,  "the  land  with 
the  beautiful  tar-paper  shack  and  the  withered 
cedar  tree, — the  one  withered  cedar  tree, — 
standing  in  its  lonely  isolation  and  seeming  to 
beckon " 

"Say,"  he  said,  "was  you  ever  in  the  real 
estate  business  yourself?" 

"No,"  I  answered,  "but  I  have  a  poetic 
mind,  and  I  begin  to  see  the  poetry,  the  maj- 
esty, of  real  estate." 

"Oh,  is  that  it,"  he  answered.  "Well,  that 
land  out  there, — it's  an  acre  and  a  half, — was 
sold  yesterday  for  three  million  dollars ! !" 

"For  what!" 

"Por  three  million  dollars,  cold." 
7^ 


Familiar  Incidents 


''Not  COLD!"  I  said,  "don't  tell  me  it  was 
cold." 

"Yes,"  went  on  the  real  estate  man,  "and 
only  three  years  ago  you  could  have  come  out 
here  and  had  it  for  a  song!" 

"For  a  song!"  I  repeated. 

Just  think  of  it!  And  I  had  missed  it!  With 
a  voice  like  mine.  If  I  had  known  what  I 
know  now,  I  would  have  come  out  to  that 
land  and  sung  to  it  all  night.  I  never  knew 
in  the  days  when  I  was  content  with  fifteen 
dollars  a  week  what  a  hidden  gift  my  voice 
was.  I  should  have  taken  up  land-singing  and 
made  a  fortune  out  of  it. 

The  thought  of  it  saddened  me  all  the  way 
home:  and  the  talk  of  the  real  estate  man  as 
he  went  made  me  feel  still  worse. 

He  showed  me  a  church  that  I  could  have 
bought  for  a  hundred  thousand  and  sold  now 
at  half  a  million  for  a  motor  garage.  If  I 
had  started  buying  churches  instead  of  work- 
ing on  a  newspaper,  I'd  have  been  rich  to-day. 

There  was  a  skating  rink  I  could  have 
,bought,   and   a  theatre   and  a   fruit  store,   a 

.71 


Familiar  Incidents 


beautiful  little  one-story  wooden  fruit  store, 
right  on  a  corner,  with  the  darlingest  Italian 
in  it  that  you  ever  saw.  There  was  the  cutest 
little  pet  of  a  cov/-stable  that  I  could  have 
turned  into  an  apartment  store  at  a  profit  of  a 
million, — at  the  time  when  I  was  studying 
Greek  and  forgetting  it.  Oh!  the  wasted  op- 
portunities of  life! 

And  that  evening  when  I  got  back  to  the 
club  and  talked  about  it  at  dinner  to  my  busi- 
ness friends,  I  found  that  I  had  only  heard  a 
small  part  of  it. 

Real  estate!  That's  nothing!  Why  they 
told  me  that  fifteen  years  ago  I  could  have 
had  all  sorts  of  things, — trunk  line  rail- 
ways, sugar  refineries,  silver  mines, — any  of 
them  for  a  song.  When  I  heard  it  I  was  half 
glad  I  hadn't  sung  for  the  land.  They  told 
me  that  there  was  a  time  when  I  could  have 
bought  out  the  Federal  Steel  Co.  for  twenty 
miUion  dollars !     And  I  let  it  go. 

The  whole  Canadian  Pacific  Railway,  they 
said,  was  thrown  on  the  market  for  fifty  mil- 
lions.    I  left  it  there  writhing,  and  didn't  pick 

72 


He  showed  me  a  church  that  I  could  have  bought  for  a  hundred  thousand. 


Familiar  Incidents 


it  up.  Sheer  lack  of  confidence!  I  see  now 
why  these  men  get  rich.  It's  their  fine,  glori- 
ous confidence,  that  enables  them  to  write  out 
a  cheque  for  fifty  million  dollars  and  think 
nothing  of  it. 

If  I  wrote  a  cheque  like  that,  I'd  be  afraid 
of  going  to  Sing  Sing.  But  they  aren't,  and 
so  they  get  what  they  deserve. 

Forty-five  years  ago, — a  man  at  the  club 
told  me  this  with  almost  a  sob  in  his  voice, — 
either  Rockefeller  or  Carnegie  could  have  been 
bought  clean  up  for  a  thousand  dollars ! 

Think  of  it! 

Why  didn't  my  father  buy  them  for  me,  as 
pets,  for  my  birthday  and  let  me  keep  them 
till  I  grew  up? 

If  I  had  my  life  over  again,  no  school  or 
education  for  me!  Not  with  all  this  beautiful 
mud  and  these  tar-paper  shacks  and  corner  lot 
fruit  stores  lying  round!  I'd  buy  out  the 
whole  United  States  and  take  a  chance,  a 
sporting  chance,  on  the  rise  in  values. 


73 


IV. — M^  Unknown  Friend 


H 


E  STEPPED  into  the  smoking 
compartment  of  the  Pulknan, 
where  I  was  sitting  alone. 

He    had    on    a    long    fur-lined 
coat,  and  he  carried  a  fifty-dollar  suit  case  that 
he  put  down  on  the  seat. 
Then  he  saw  me. 

"Well!  well!"  he  said,  and  recognition 
broke  out  all  over  his  face  like  morning  sun- 
light. 

"Well!  well!"  I  repeated. 
"By  Jove!"  he  said,   shaking  hands  vigor- 
ously,  "who  would  have    thought    of    seeing 
you?" 

"Who,  indeed,"  I  thought  to  myself. 
He  looked  at  me  more  closely. 
"You  haven't  changed  a  bit,"  he  said. 
"Neither  have  you,"  said  1  heartily. 
"You  may  be  a  little  stouter,"  he  went  on 
critically. 

74 


Familiar  Incidents 


"Yes,"  I  said,  "a  little;  but  you're  stouter 
yourself." 

This  of  course  would  help  to  explain  away 
any  undue  stoutness  on  my  part. 

"No,"  I  continued  boldly  and  firmly,  "yo" 
look  just  about  the  same  as  ever." 

And  all  the  time  I  was  wondering  who  he 
was.  I  didn't  know  him  from  Adam;  I 
couldn't  recall  him  a  bit.  I  don't  mean  that 
my  memory  is  weak.  On  the  contrary,  it  is 
singularly  tenacious.  True,  I  find  it  very  hard 
to  remember  people's  names  \  very  often,  too, 
it  is  hard  for  me  to  recall  a  face,  and  fre- 
quently I  fail  to  recall  a  person's  appearance, 
and  of  course  clothes  are  a  thing  one  doesn't 
notice.  But  apart  from  these  details  I  never 
forget  anybody,  and  I  am  proud  of  it.  But 
when  it  does  happen  that  a  name  or  face  es- 
capes me  I  never  lose  my  presence  of  mind.  I 
know  just  how  to  deal  with  the  situation.  It 
only  needs  coolness  and  intellect,  and  it  all 
comes  right. 

My  friend  sat  down. 

"It's  a  long  time  since  we  met,"  he  said. 
7& 


Familiar  Incidents 


"A  long  time,"  I  repeated  with  something 
of  a  note  of  sadness.  I  wanted  him  to  feel 
that  I,  too,  had  suffered  from  it. 

"But  it  has  gone  very  quickly." 

"Like  a  flash,"  I  assented  cheerfully. 

"Strange,"  he  said,  "how  life  goes  on  and 
we  lose  track  of  people,  and  things  alter.  I 
often  think  about  it.  I  sometimes  wonder," 
he  continued,  "where  all  the  old  gang  are 
gone  to." 

"So  do  I,"  I  said.  In  fact  I  was  wondering 
about  it  at  the  very  moment.  I  always  find 
in  circumstances  like  these  that  a  man  begins 
sooner  or  later  to  talk  of  the  "old  gang"  or 
"the  boys"  or  "the  crowd."  That's  where  the 
opportunity  comes  in  to  gather  who  he  is. 

''Do  you  ever  go  back  to  the  old  place?" 
he  asked. 

"Never,"  I  said,  firmly  and  flatly.  This 
had  to  be  absolute.  I  felt  that  once  and  for 
all  the  "old  place"  must  be  ruled  out  of  the 
discussion  till  I  could  discover  where  it  was. 

"No,"  he  went  on,  "I  suppose  you'd  hardly 
care  to." 

76 


Familiar  Incidents 


"Not  now,"  I  said  very  gently. 

"I  understand.  I  beg  your  pardon,"  he 
said,  and  there  was  silence  for  a  few  moments. 

So  far  I  had  scored  the  first  point.  There 
was  evidently  an  old  place  somewhere  to  which 
1  would  hardly  care  to  go.  That  was  some- 
thing to  build  on. 

Presently  he  began  again. 

"Yes,"  he  said,  "I  sometimes  meet  some 
of  the  old  boys  and  they  begin  to  talk  of  you 
and  wonder  what  you're  doing." 

"Poor  things,"  I  thought,  but  I  didn't  say  it. 

I  knew  it  was  time  now  to  make  a  bold 
stroke;  so  I  used  the  method  that  I  always 
employ.     I  struck  in  with  great  animation. 

"Say!"  I  said,  "where's  Billy?  Do  you 
ever  hear  anything  of  Billy  now?" 

This  Is  really  a  very  safe  line.  Every  old 
gang  has  a  Billy  in  it. 

"Yes,"  said  my  friend,  "sure — Billy  is 
ranching  out  in  Montana.  I  saw  him  in  Chi- 
cago last  spring, — weighed  about  two  hundred 
pounds, — you  wouldn't  know  him." 

77 


Familiar  Incidents 


"No,  I  certainly  wouldn't,"  I  murmured  to 
myself. 

"And  where's  Pete?"  I  said.  This  was 
safe  ground.     There  is  always  a  Pete. 

"You  mean  Billy's  brother,"  he  said. 

"Yes,  yes,  Billy's  brother  Pete.  I  often 
think  of  him." 

"Oh,"  answered  the  unknown  man,  "old 
Pete's  quite  changed, — settled  down  alto- 
gether." Here  he  began  to  chuckle,  "Why, 
Pete's  married!" 

I  started  to  laugh,  too.  Under  these  cir- 
cumstances it  is  always  supposed  to  be  very 
funny  if  a  man  has  got  married.  The  notion 
of  old  Peter  (whoever  he  is)  being  married  is 
presumed  to  be  simply  killing.  I  kept  on 
chuckling  away  quietly  at  the  mere  idea  of  it. 
I  was  hoping  that  I  might  manage  to  keep  on 
laughing  till  the  train  stopped.  I  had  only 
fifty  miles  more  to  go.  It's  not  hard  to  laugh 
for  fifty  miles  if  you  know  how. 

But  my  friend  wouldn't  be  content  with  it. 

"I  often  meant  to  write  to  you,"  he  said, 
7B 


Familiar  Incidents 


his    voice     falling    to     a     confidential     tone, 
"especially  when  I  heard  of  your  loss." 

I  remained  quiet.  What  had  I  lost?  Was 
it  money?  And  if  so,  how  much?  And  why 
had  I  lost  it?  I  wondered  if  it  had  ruined  me 
or  only  partly  ruined  me. 

"One  can  never  get  over  a  loss  like  that," 
he  continued  solemnly. 

Evidently  I  was  plumb  ruined.  But  I  said 
nothing  and  remained  under  cover,  waiting  to 
draw  his  fire. 

"Yes,"  the  man  went  on,  "death  is  always 
sad." 

Death!  Oh,  that  was  it,  was  it?  I  almost 
hiccoughed  with  joy.  That  was  easy.  Han- 
dling a  case  of  death  in  these  conversations  is 
simplicity  itself.  One  has  only  to  sit  quiet 
and  wait  to  find  out  who  is  dead. 

"Yes,"  I  murmured,  "very  sad.  But  it  has 
its  other  side,  too." 

"Very  true,  especially,  of  course,  at  that 
age." 

"As  you  say  at  that  age,  and  after  such  a 
life." 

79 


Familiar  Incidents 


"Strong  and  bright  to  the  last  I  suppose," 
he  continued,  very  sympathetically. 

''Yes,"  I  said,  falling  on  sure  ground,  "able 
to  sit  up  in  bed  and  smoke  within  a  few  days 
of  the  end." 

"What,"  he  said,  perplexed,  "did  your 
grandmother " 

My  grandmother!     That  was  it,  was  It? 

"Pardon  me,"  I  said  provoked  at  my  own 
stupidity;  "when  I  say  smoked,  I  mean  able 
to  sit  up  and  be  smoked  to,  a  habit  she  had, — 
being  read  to,  and  being  smoked  to, — only 
thing  that  seemed  to  compose  her " 

As  I  said  this  I  could  hear  the  rattle  and 
clatter  of  the  train  running  past  the  sema- 
phores and  switch  points  and  slacking  to  a 
stop. 

My  friend  looked  quickly  out  of  the  win- 
dow. 

His  face  was  agitated. 

"Great  heavens!"  he  said,  "that's  the  junc- 
tion.    I've  missed  my  stop.     I  should  have  got 

out  at  the  last  station.    Say,  porter,"  he  called 

80 


Familiar  Incidents 


out  into  the  alleyway,  "how  long  do  we  stop 
here?" 

"Just  two  minutes,  sah,"  called  a  voice  back. 
"She's  late  now,  she's  makin'  up  tahm!" 

My  friend  had  hopped  up  now  and  had 
pulled  out  a  bunch  of  keys  and  was  fumbling 
at  the  lock  of  the  suit  case. 

"I'll  have  to  wire  back  or  something,"  he 
gasped.  "Confound  this  lock — my  money's  in 
the  suit  case." 

My  one  fear  now  was  that  he  would  fail 
to  get  off. 

"Here,"  I  said,  pulling  some  money  out  of 
my  pocket,  "don't  bother  with  the  lock.  Here's 
money." 

"Thanks,"  he  said  grabbing  the  roll  of 
money  out  of  my  hand, — in  his  excitement  he 
took  all  that  I  had. — "I'll  just  have  time." 

He  sprang  from  the  train.  I  saw  him 
through  the  window,  moving  toward  the  wait- 
ing-room.    He  didn't  seem  going  very  fast. 

I  waited. 

The  porters  were  calling,  "All  abawd!  AH 
abawd."     There  was  the  clang  of  a  bell,  a 

8i 


Familiar  Incidents 


hiss  of  steam,  and  in  a  second  the  train 
was  off. 

"Idiot,"  I  thought,  "he's  missed  it;"  and 
there  was  his  fifty-dollar  suit  case  lying  on 
the  seat. 

I  waited,  looking  out  of  the  window  and 
wondering  who  the  man  was,  anyway. 

Then  presently  I  heard  the  porter's  voice 
again.  He  evidently  was  guiding  someone 
through  the  car. 

"Ah  looked  all  through  the  kyar  for  it, 
sah,"  he  was  saying. 

"I  left  it  in  the  seat  in  the  car  there  behind 
my  wife,"  said  the  angry  voice  of  a  stranger, 
a  well-dressed  man  who  put  his  head  into  the 
door  of  the  compartment. 

Then  his  face,  too,  beamed  all  at  once  with 
recognition.  But  it  was  not  for  me.  It  was 
for  the  fifty-dollar  valise. 

"Ah,  there  it  is,"  he  cried,  seizing  it  and 
carrying  it  off. 

I  sank  back  in  dismay.  The  ''old  gang!" 
Pete's  marriage  I  My  grandmother's  death  I 
Great  heavens  I    And  my  money !    I  saw  it  all ; 

82 


Familiar  Incidents 


the  other  man  was  "making  talk,"  too,  and 
making  it  with  a  purpose. 

Stung  I 

And  next  time  that  I  fall  into  talk  with  a 
casual  stranger  in  a  car,  I  shall  not  try  to  be 
quite  so  extraordinarily  clever. 


m 


V. —  Under  the  Barber  s  Knife 

WAS  you  to  the  Arena  the  other 
night?"  said  the  barber,  leaning 
over  me  and  speaking  in  his  con- 
fidential whisper. 

"Yes,"  I  said,  "I  was  there." 

He  saw  from  this  that  I  could  still  speak. 
So  he  laid  another  thick  wet  towel  over  my 
face  before  he  spoke  again. 

"What  did  you  think  of  the  game,"  he 
asked. 

But  he  had  miscalculated.  I  could  still  make 
a  faint  sound  through  the  wet  towels.  He 
laid  three  or  four  more  very  thick  ones  over 
my  face  and  stood  with  his  five  finger  tips 
pressed  against  my  face  for  support.  A  thick 
steam  rose  about  me.  Through  it  I  could  hear 
the  barber's  voice  and  the  flick-flack  of  the 
razor  as  he  stropped  it. 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  went  on  in  his  quiet  profes- 
sional tone,  punctuated  with  the  noise  of  the 
razor,   "I  knowed  from  the  start  them  boys 


I  shall  not  try  to  be  quite  so  extraordinaril}-  clever. 


Familiar  Incidents 


was  sure  to  win," — flick-flack-fllck-flack, — "as 
soon  as  I  seen  the  ice  that  night  and  seen 
the  get-away  them  boys  made  I  knowed  it," — 
flick-flack, — "and  just  as  soon  as  Jimmy  got 
aholt  of  the  puck " 

This  was  more  than  the  barber  at  the  next 
chair  could  stand. 

"Him  get  de  puck,"  he  cried,  giving  an 
angry  dash  with  a  full  brush  of  soap  into  the 
face  of  the  man  under  him, — "him  get  ut-dat 
stiff — why,  boys,"  he  said,  and  he  turned  ap- 
pealingly  to  the  eight  barbers,  who  all  rested 
their  elbows  on  the  customers'  faces  while  they 
listened  to  the  rising  altercation;  even  the 
manicure  girl,  thrilled  to  attention,  clasped 
tight  the  lumpy  hand  of  her  client  in  her  white 
digits  and  remained  motionless, — "why  boys, 
dat  feller  can't  no  more  play  hockey  than " 

"See  here,"  said  the  barber,  suddenly  and 
angrily,  striking  his  fist  emphatically  on  the 
towels  that  covered  my  face.  "I'll  bet  you 
five  dollars  to  one  Jimmy  can  skate  rings 
round  any  two  men  in  the  league." 

"Him  skate,"  sneered  the  other  squirting  a 
85 


Familiar  Incidents 


jet  of  blinding  steam  in  the  face  of  the  client 
he  was  treating,  "he  ain't  got  no  more  go  in 
him  than  dat  rag," — and  he  slapped  a  wet 
towel  across  his  client's  face. 

All  the  barbers  were  excited  now.  There 
was  a  babel  of  talk  from  behind  each  of  the 
eight  chairs.  "He  can't  skate;"  "He  can 
skate;"  "I'll  bet  you  ten." 

Already  they  were  losing  their  tempers, 
slapping  their  customers  with  wet  towels  and 
jabbing  great  brushfuls  of  soap  into  their 
mouths.  My  barber  was  leaning  over  my  face 
with  his  whole  body.  In  another  minute  one 
or  the  other  of  them  would  have  been  suffi- 
ciently provoked  to  have  dealt  his  customer  a 
blow  behind  the  ear. 

Then  suddenly  there  was  a  hush. 
"The  boss,"  said  one. 

In  another  minute  I  could  realize,  though  I 
couldn't  see  it,  that  a  majestic  figure  in  a  white 
coat  was  moving  down  the  line.  All  was  still 
again  except  the  quiet  hum  of  the  mechanical 
shampoo  brush  and  the  soft  burble  of  running 
water. 


Familiar  Incidents 


The  barber  began  removing  the  wet  towels 
from  my  face  one  by  one.  He  peeled  them 
off  with  the  professional  neatness  of  an  Egyptol- 
ogist unwrapping  a  mummy.  When  he  reached 
my  face  he  looked  searchingly  at  it.  There 
was  suspicion  in  his  eye. 

"Been  out  of  town?"  he  questioned. 

"Yes,"  I  admitted. 

"Who's  been  doing  your  work?"  he  asked. 
This  question,  from  a  barber,  has  no  reference 
to  one's  daily  occupation.  It  means  "who  has 
been  shaving  you." 

I  knew  it  was  best  to  own  up.  I'd  been  in 
the  wrong,  and  I  meant  to  acknowledge  it  with 
perfect  frankness. 

"I've  been  shaving  myself,"  I  said. 

My  barber  stood  back  from  me  in  con- 
tempt. There  was  a  distinct  sensation  all 
down  the  line  of  barbers.  One  of  them  threw 
a  wet  rag  in  a  corner  with  a  thud,  and  another 
sent  a  sudden  squirt  from  an  atomizer  into 
his  customer's  eyes  as  a  mark  of  disgust. 

My  barber  continued  to  look  at  me  nar- 
rowly. 


Familiar  Incidents 


"What  razor  do  you  use?"  he  said. 

"A  safety  razor,"  I  answered. 

The  barber  had  begun  to  dash  soap  over 
my  face ;  but  he  stopped — aghast  at  what  I  had 
said. 

A  safety  razor  to  a  barber  is  like  a  red 
rag  to  a  bull. 

"If  it  was  me,"  he  went  on,  beating  lather 
into  me  as  he  spoke,  "I  wouldn't  let  one  of 
them  things  near  my  face:  No,  sir:  There 
ain't  no  safety  in  them.  They  tear  the  hide 
clean  off  you — just  rake  the  hair  right  out  by 
the  follicles,"  as  he  said  this  he  was  illustrat- 
ing his  meaning  with  jabs  of  his  razor, — 
"them  things  just  cut  a  man's  face  all  to 
pieces,"  he  jabbed  a  stick  of  alum  against  an 
open  cut  that  he  had  made, — "And  as  for 
cleanliness,  for  sanitation,  for  this  here  hy- 
giene and  for  germs,  I  wouldn't  have  them 
round  me  for  a  fortune." 

I  said  nothing.  I  knew  I  had  deserved  It, 
and  I  kept  quiet. 

The  barber  gradually  subsided.  Under 
other   circumstances  he  would  have  told  me 

88 


When  he  reached  my  face  he  looked  searchingly  at  it. 


Familiar  Incidents 


something  of  the  spring  training  of  the  base- 
ball clubs,  or  the  last  items  from  the  Jackson- 
ville track,  or  any  of  those  things  which  a  cul- 
tivated man  loves  to  hear  discussed  between 
breakfast  and  business.  But  I  was  not  worth 
it.  As  he  neared  the  end  of  the  shaving  he 
spoke  again,  this  time  in  a  confidential,  al- 
most yearning,  tone. 

"Massage?"  he  said. 

"No  thank  you." 

"Shampoo  the  scalp?"  he  whispered. 

"No  thanks." 

"Singe  the  hair?"  he  coaxed. 

"No  thanks." 

The  barber  made  one  more  effort. 

"Say,"  he  said  in  my  ear,  as  a  thing  con- 
cerning himself  and  me  alone,  "your  hair's 
pretty  well  all  falling  out.  You'd  better  let 
me  just  shampoo  up  the  scalp  a  bit  and  stop 
up  them  follicles  or  pretty  soon  you  won't — " 

"No,  thank  you,"  I  said,  "not  to-day." 

This  was  all  the  barber  could  stand.  He 
saw  that  I  was  just  one  of  those  miserable 
dead-beats  who  come  to  a  barber  shop  merely 

89 


Familiar  Incidents 


for  a  shave,  and  who  carry  away  the  scalp 
and  the  follicles  and  all  the  barber's  per- 
quisites as  if  they  belonged  to  them. 

In  a  second  he  had  me  thrown  out  of  the 
chair. 

"Next,"  he  shouted. 

As  I  passed  down  the  line  of  the  barbers, 
I  could  see  contempt  in  every  eye  while  they 
turned  on  the  full  clatter  of  their  revolving 
shampoo  brushes  and  drowned  the  noise  of 
my  miserable  exit  in  the  roar  of  machinery. 


99 


PARISIAN  PASTIMES 


/. — The  Advantages  of  a  Polite  Educa- 
tion 

TAKE   it   from   me,"   said  my   friend 
from  Kansas,   leaning  back  in  his 
seat   at   the   Taveme   Royale   and 
holding  his  cigar  in  his  two  fingers 
— "don't  talk  no  French  here  in  Paris.     They 
don't  expect  it,  and  they  don't  seem  to  under- 
stand it." 

This  man  from  Kansas,  mind  you,  had  a 
right  to  speak.  He  knevc  French.  He  had 
learned  French — he  told  me  so  himself — good 
French,  at  the  Fayetteville  Classical  Academy. 
Later  on  he  had  had  the  natural  method  "off" 
a  man  from  New  Orleans.  It  had  cost  him 
"fifty  cents  a  throw."  All  this  I  have  on  his 
own  word.  But  in  France  something  seemed  to 
go  wrong  with  his  French. 

"No,"  he  said  reflectively,  "I  guess  what 
most  of  them  speak  here  is  a  sort  of  patois." 

93 


Parisian  Pastimes 


When  he  said  It  was  a  patois,  I  knew  just 
what  he  meant.  It  was  equivalent  to  saying 
that  he   couldn't  understand  it. 

I  had  seen  him  strike  patois  before.  There 
had  been  a  French  steward  on  the  steamer 
coming  over,  and  the  man  from  Kansas,  after 
a  couple  of  attempts,  had  said  it  was  no  use 
talking  French  to  that  man.  He  spoke  a  hope- 
less patois.  There  were  half  a  dozen  cabin 
passengers,  too,  returning  to  their  homes  in 
France.  But  we  soon  found  from  listening  to 
their  conversation  on  deck  that  what  they 
were  speaking  was  not  French  but  some  sort 
of  patois. 

It  was  the  same  thing  coming  through  Nor- 
mandy. Patois,  everywhere,  not  a  word  of 
French — not  a  single  sentence  of  the  real  lan- 
guage, in  the  way  they  had  it  at  Fayetteville. 
We  stopped  off  a  day  at  Rouen  to  look  at  the 
cathedral.  A  sort  of  abbot  showed  us  round. 
Would  you  believe  It,  that  man  spoke  patois, 
straight  patois — the  very  worst  kind,  and  fast. 
The  man  from  Kansas  had  spotted  It  at  oncco 

94 


Parisian  Pastimes 


He  hadn't  listened  to  more  than  ten  sentences 
before  he  recognized  it.     "Patois,"  he  said. 

Of  course,  it's  fine  to  be  able  to  detect  patois 
like  this.  It's  impressive.  The  mere  fact  that 
you  know  the  word  patois  shows  that  you  must 
be  mighty  well  educated. 

Here  in  Paris  it  was  the  same  way.  Every- 
body that  the  man  from  Kansas  tried — 
waiters,  hotel  clerks,  shop  people — all  spoke 
patois.    An  educated  person  couldn't  follow  it. 

On  the  whole,  I  think  the  advice  of  the  man 
from  Kansas  is  good.  When  you  come  to 
Paris,  leave  French  behind.  You  don't  need 
it,  and  they  don't  expect  it  of  you. 

In  any  case,  you  soon  learn  from  experience 
not  to  use  it. 

If  you  try  to,  this  is  what  happens.  You 
summon  a  waiter  to  you  and  you  say  to  him 
very  slowly,  syllable  by  syllable,  so  as  to  give 
him  every  chance  in  case  he's  not  an  educated 
man: 

"Bringez  moi  de  la  soupe,  de  la  fish,  de  la 
roast  pork  et  de  la  fromage." 

And  he  answers: 

95 


Parisian  Pastimes 


"Yes,  sir,  roast  pork,  sir,  and  a  little  bacon 
on  the  side?" 

That  waiter  was  raised  In  Illinois. 

Or  suppose  you  stop  a  man  on  the  street 
and  you  say  to  him: 

"Musshoo,  s'il  vous  plait,  which  is  la  direc- 
tion pour  aller  a  le  Palais  Royal?" 

And  he  answers: 

"Well,  I  tell  you,  I'm  something  of  a 
stranger  here  myself,  but  I  guess  it's  straight 
down  there  a  piece." 

Now  it's  no  use  speculating  whether  that 
man  comes  from  Dordogne  Inferieure  or  from 
Auvergne-sur-les-Puits  because  he  doesn't. 

On  the  other  hand,  you  may  strike  a  real 
Frenchman — there  are  some  even  in  Paris.  I 
met  one  the  other  day  in  trying  to  find  my  way 
about,  and  I  asked  him: 

"Musshoo,  s'il  vous  plait,  which  is  la  direc- 
tion pour  aller  a  Thomas  Cook  &  Son?" 

"B'n'm'ss'ulvla'n'fsse'n'sse'pas!" 

I  said:  "Thank  you  so  much!  I  had  half 
suspected  it  myself."  But  I  didn't  really  know 
what  he  meant. 

96 


Parisian  Pastimes 


So  I  have  come  to  make  it  a  rule  never  to 
use  French  unless  driven  to  it.  Thus,  for  ex- 
ample, I  had  a  tremendous  linguistic  struggle 
in  a  French  tailors  shop. 

There  was  a  sign  in  the  window  to  the  effect 
that  "completes"  might  be  had  "for  a  hun- 
dred." It  seemed  a  chance  not  to  be  missed. 
Moreover,  the  same  sign  said  that  English  and 
German  were  spoken. 

So  I  went  in.  True  to  my  usual  principle 
of  ignoring  the  French  language,  I  said  to  the 
head  man: 

"You  speak  English?" 

He  shrugged  his  shoulders,  spread  out  his 
hands  and  looked  at  the  clock  on  the  wall. 

"Presently,"  he  said. 

"Oh,"  I  said,  "you'll  speak  it  presently. 
That's  splendid.  But  why  not  speak  it  right 
away?" 

The  tailor  again  looked  at  the  clock  with  a 
despairing  shrug. 

"At  twelve  o'clock,"  he  said. 

"Come  now,"  I  said,  "be  fair  about  this. 
97 


Parisian  Pastimes 


I  don't  want  to  wait  an  hour  and  a  half  for  you 
to  begin  to  talk.     Let's  get  at  it  right  now." 

But  he  was  obdurate.  He  merely  shook  his 
head  and  repeated: 

"Speak  English  at  twelve  o'clock." 

Judging  that  he  must  be  under  a  vow  of 
abstinence  during  the  morning,  I  tried  another 
idea. 

"Allemand?"  I  asked,  "German,  Deutsch, 
eh!  speak  that?" 

Again  the  French  tailor  shook  his  head,  this 
time  with  great  decision. 

"Not  till  four  o'clock,"  he  said. 

This  was  evidently  final.  He  might  be  lax 
enough  to  talk  English  at  noon,  but  he  re- 
fused point-blank  to  talk  German  till  he  had 
his   full  strength. 

I  was  just  wondering  whether  there  wasn't 
some  common  sense  in  this  after  all,  when  the 
solution  of  it  struck  me. 

"Ah!"  I  said,  speaking  in  French,  "tres 
bong !  there  is  somebody  who  comes  at  twelve, 
quelqu'un  qui  vient  a  midi,  who  can  talk 
English." 


98 


The  tailor  shrugged  his  shoulders. 


Parisian  Pastimes 


"Preclsement,"  said  the  tailor,  wreathed  in 
smiles  and  waving  his  tape  coquettishly  about 
his  neck. 

"You  flirt!"  I  said,  "but  let's  get  to  busi- 
ness. I  want  a  suit,  un  soot,  un  complete, 
complet,  comprenez-vous,  veston,  gilet,  une 
pair  de  panteloon — everything — do  you  get 
it?" 

The  tailor  was  now  all  animation. 

"Ah,  certainement,"  he  said,  "monsieur  de- 
sires a  fantasy,  une  fantaisie,  is  it  not?" 

A  fantasy  I    Good  heavens  I 

The  man  had  evidently  got  the  idea  from 
my  naming  so  many  things  that  I  wanted  a  suit 
for  a  fancy  dress  carnival. 

"Fantasy  nothing!"  I  said — "pas  de  fan- 
taisie! un  soot  anglais" — here  an  idea  struck 
me  and  I  tapped  myself  on  the  chest — "like 
this,"  I  said,  "comme  ceci." 

"Bon,"  said  the  tailor,  now  perfectly  satis- 
fied, "une  fantaisie  comme  porte  monsieur." 

Here  I  got  mad. 

"Blast  you,"  I  said,  "this  Is  not  a  fantaisie. 
Do  you  take  me  for  a   dragon-fly,  or  what? 

99 


Parisian  Pastimes 


Now  come,  let's  get  this  fantalsle  business 
cleared  up.  This  is  what  I  want" — and  here 
I  put  my  hand  on  a  roll  of  very  quiet  grey 
cloth  on  the  counter. 

"Tres  bien,"  said  the  tailor,  "une  fantaisie." 

I  stared  at  him. 

"Is  that  a  fantaisie?" 

"Certainement,  monsieur." 

"Now,"  I  said,  "let's  go  into  it  further," 
and  I  touched  another  piece  of  plain  pepper 
and  salt  stuff  of  the  kind  that  is  called  in  the 
simple  and  refined  language  of  my  own  coun- 
try, gents'  panting. 

"This?" 

"Une  fantaisie,"  said  the  French  tailor. 

"Well,"  I  said,  "you've  got  more  imagina- 
tion than  I  have." 

Then  I  touched  a  piece  of  purple  blue  that 
would  have  been  almost  too  loud  for  a  Caro- 
lina nigger. 

"Is  this  a  fantaisie?" 

The  tailor  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"Ah,  non,"  he  said  in  deprecating  tones. 

100 


Parisian  Pastimes 


"Tell  me,"  I  said,  speaking  in  French,  "just 
exactly  what  it  is  you  call  a  fantasy." 

The  tailor  burst  into  a  perfect  paroxysm  of 
French,  gesticulating  and  waving  his  tape  as 
he  put  the  sentences  over  the  plate  one  after 
another.  It  was  fast  pitching,  but  I  took  them 
every  one,  and  I  got  him. 

What  he  meant  was  that  any  single  colour 
or  combination  of  single  colours — for  instance, 
a  pair  of  sky  blue  breeches  with  pink  insertion 
behind — is  not  regarded  by  a  French  tailor  as 
a  fantaisie  or  fancy.  But  any  mingled  colour, 
such  as  the  ordinary  drab  grey  of  the  business 
man  is  a  fantaisie  of  the  daintiest  kind.  To 
the  eye  of  a  Parisian  tailor,  a  Quakers'  meet- 
ing is  a  glittering  panorama  of  fantaisies, 
whereas  a  negro  ball  at  midnight  in  a  yellow 
room  with  a  band  in  scarlet,  is  a  plain,  simple 
scene. 

I  thanked  him.     Then  I  said: 

"Measure  me,  mesurez-moi,  passez  le  tape 
line  autour  de  moi." 

He  did  it. 

I  don't  know  what  it  is  they  measure  you 

lOI 


Parisian  Pastimes 


in,  whether  in  centimetres  or  cubic  feet  or 
what  it  is.     But  the  effect  is  appalling. 

The  tailor  runs  his  tape  round  your  neck 
and  calls  "sixty!"  Then  he  puts  it  round  the 
lower  part  of  the  back — at  the  major  circum- 
ference, you  understand, — and  shouts,  "a  hun- 
dred and  fifty!" 

It  sounded  a  record  breaker.  I  felt  that 
there  should  have  been  a  burst  of  applause. 
But,  to  tell  the  truth,  I  have  friends — quiet 
sedentary  men  in  the  professoriate — who 
would  easily  hit  up  four  or  five  hundred  on 
the  same  scale. 

Then  came  the  last  item. 

"Now,"  I  said,  "when  will  this  'complete' 
be  ready?" 

"Ah,  monsieur,"  said  the  tailor,  with  v/in- 
some  softness,  "we  are  very  busy,  crushed, 
ecrases  with  commands  I  Give  us  time,  don't 
hurry  us!" 

"Well,"  I  said,  "how  long  do  you  want?" 

"Ah,  monsieur,"  he  pleaded,  "give  us  four 
days!" 

I  never  moved  an  eyelash. 

IQ2 


Parisian  Pastimes 


"What!"   I   said  Indignantly,    "four    days! 
Monstrous !      Let   me   have   this   whole   com- 
plete fantasy  in  one  day  or  I  won't  buy  it." 
"Ah,  monsieur,  three  days?" 
"No,"  I  said,  "make  it  two  days." 
"Two  days  and  a  half,  monsieur." 
"Two  days  and  a  quarter,"  I  said;  "give  it 
me  the  day  after  to-morrow  at  three  o'clock 
in  the  morning." 

"Ah,  monsieur,  ten  o'clock." 
"Make  it  ten  minutes  to  ten  and  it's  a  go," 
I  said. 

"Bon,"  said  the  tailor. 

He  kept  his  word.  I  am  wearing  the 
fantaisie  as  I  write.  For  a  fantaisle,  It  Is  fairly 
quiet,  except  that  It  has  three  pockets  on  each 
side  outside,  and  a  rolled  back  collar  suitable 
for  the  throat  of  an  opera  singer,  and  as  many 
buttons  as  a  harem  skirt.  Beyond  that,  it's  a 
first-class,  steady,  reliable,  quiet,  religious 
fantaisle,  such  as  any  retired  French  ballet 
master  might  be  proud  to  wear. 


103 


//. — The  Joys  of  Pidlanthropy 

GOOD-MORNING,"  said  the  valet  de 
chambre,  as  I  stepped  from  my 
room. 

"G  ood-mornin  g,"  I  answered. 
"Pray  accept  twenty-five  centimes." 

"Good-morning,  sir,"  said  the  maitre  d'hotel, 
as  I  passed  down  the  corridor,  "a  lovely  morn- 
ing, sir." 

"So  lovely,"  I  replied,  "that  I  must  at  once 
ask  you  to  accept  forty-five  centimes  on  the 
strength  of  it." 

"A  beautiful  day,  monsieur,"  said  the  head 
waiter,  rubbing  his  hands,  "I  trust  that  mon- 
sieur has  slept  well." 

"So  well,"  I  answered,  "that  monsieur  must 
absolutely  insist  on  your  accepting  seventy-five 
centimes  on  the  spot.     Come,  don't  deny  me. 
This  is  personal  matter.     Every  time  I  sleep 
I  simply  have  to  give  money  away." 
"Monsieur  is  most  kind." 
Kind?    I  should  think  not.     If  the  valet  de 
104 


Parisian  Pastimes 


chambre  and  the  maitre  d'hotel  and  the  chef  de 
service  and  the  others  of  the  ten  men  needed 
to  supply  me  with  fifteen  cents  worth  of  coffee, 
could  read  my  heart,  they  would  find  it  an  abyss 
of  the  blackest  hatred. 

Yet  they  take  their  handful  of  coppers — 
great  grown  men  dressed  up  in  monkey  suits 
of  black  at  eight  in  the  morning — and  bow 
double  for  it. 

If  they  tell  you  it  is  a  warm  morning,  you 
must  give  them  two  cents.  If  you  ask  the  time, 
it  costs  you  two  cents.  If  you  want  a  real 
genuine  burst  of  conversation,  it  costs  any- 
where from  a  cent  to  a  cent  and  a  half  a  word. 

Such  is  Paris  all  day  long.  Tip,  tip,  tip, 
till  the  brain  is  weary,  not  with  the  cost  of  it, 
but  with  the  arithmetical  strain. 

No  pleasure  is  perfect.  Every  rose  has  its 
thorn.  The  thorn  of  the  Parisian  holiday- 
maker  is  the  perpetual  necessity  of  handing 
out  small  gratuities  t6  a  set  of  overgrown 
flunkies  too  lazy  to  split  wood. 

Not  that  the  amount  of  the  tips,  all  added 
together,  is  anything  serious.    No  rational  man 


Parisian  Pastimes 


would  grudge  it  if  it  could  be  presented  in  a 
bill  as  a  lump  sum  at  breakfast  time  every 
morning  and  done  with  for  the  day. 

But  the  incessant  necessity  of  handing  out 
small  tips  of  graded  amounts  gets  on  one's 
nerves.  It  is  necessary  in  Paris  to  go  round 
with  enough  money  of  different  denominations 
in  one's  pocket  to  start  a  bank — gold  and  paper 
notes  for  serious  purchases,  and  with  them  a 
huge  dead  weight  of  great  silver  pieces,  five 
franc  bits  as  large  as  a  Quaker's  shoebuckle, 
and  a  jingling  mass  of  coppers  in  a  side  pocket. 
These  one  must  distribute  as  extras  to  cab- 
men, waiters,  news-vendors,  beggars,  anybody 
and  everybody  in  fact  that  one  has  anything  to 
do  with. 

The  whole  mass  of  the  coppers  carried  only 
amounts  perhaps  to  twenty-five  cents  in  honest 
Canadian  money.  But  the  silly  system  of  the 
French  currency  makes  the  case  appear  worse 
than  it  is,  and  gives  one  the  impression  of  be- 
ing a  walking  treasury. 

Morning,  noon,  and  night  the  visitor  is  per- 
petually putting  his  hand  into  his  side  pocket 

io6 


Parisian  Pastimes 


and  pulling  out  coppers.  He  drips  coppers  all 
day  in  an  unending  stream.  You  enter  a 
French  theatre.  You  buy  a  programme,  fifty 
centimes,  and  ten  more  to  the  man  who  sells  it. 
You  hand  your  coat  and  cane  to  an  aged  harpy, 
who  presides  over  what  is  called  the  vestiaire, 
pay  her  twenty-five  centimes  and  give  her  ten. 
You  are  shown  to  your  seat  by  another  old 
fairy  in  dingy  black  (she  has  a  French  name, 
but  I  forget  it)  and  give  her  twenty  centimes. 
Just  think  of  the  silly  business  of  it.  Your 
ticket,  if  it  is  a  good  seat  in  a  good  theatre,  has 
cost  you  about  three  dollars  and  a  half.  One 
would  almost  think  the  theatre  could  afford  to 
throw  in  eight  cents  worth  of  harpies  for  the 
sake  of  international  good  will. 

Similarly,  in  your  hotel,  you  ring  the  bell 
and  there  appears  the  valet  de  chambre, 
dressed  in  a  red  waistcoat  and  a  coat  effect  of 
black  taffeta.  You  tell  him  that  you  want  a 
bath.  "Bien,  monsieur!"  He  will  fetch  the 
maitre  d'hotel.  Oh,  he  will,  will  he,  how  good 
of  him,  but  really  one  can't  witness  such  kind- 
ness on  his  part  without  begging  him  to  accept 

107 


Parisian  Pastimes 


a  twenty-five  centime  remembrance.  "Merci 
bien,  monsieur."  The  maitre  d'hotel  comes. 
He  is  a  noble  looking  person  who  wears  a 
dress  suit  at  eight  o'clock  in  the  morning  with 
patent  leather  shoes  of  the  kind  that  I  have 
always  wanted  but  am  still  unable  to  afford. 
Yet  I  know  from  experience  that  the  man 
merely  lives  and  breathes  at  fifty  centimes  a 
breath.  For  fifty  centimes  he'll  bow  low 
enough  to  crack  himself.  If  you  gave  him  a 
franc,  he'd  lie  down  on  the  floor  and  hck  your 
boots.  I  know  he  would;  I've  seen  them  do  it. 
So  when  the  news  comes  that  you  propose 
to  take  a  bath,  he's  right  along  side  of  you  in 
a  minute,  all  civility.  Mind  you,  in  a  really 
French  hotel,  one  with  what  is  called  the  old 
French  atmosphere,  taking  a  bath  is  quite  an 
event,  and  the  maitre  d'hotel  sees  a  dead  sure 
fifty  centimes  in  it,  with  perhaps  an  extra  ten 
centimes  if  times  are  good.  That  is  to  say, 
he  may  clear  anything  from  ten  to  twelve  cents 
on  the  transaction.  A  bath,  monsieur?  Noth- 
ing more  simple,  this  moment,  tout  de  suite, 
right  off,  he  will  at  once  give  orders  for  it.    So 

io8 


Parisian  Pastimes 


you  give  him  eleven  cents  and  he  then  tells  the 
hotel  harpy,  dressed  In  black,  like  the  theatre 
harpies,  to  get  the  bath  and  she  goes  and  gets 
it.  She  was  there,  of  course,  all  the  time,  right 
in  the  corridor,  and  heard  all  that  proceeded, 
but  she  doesn't  "enter  into  her  functions"  until 
the  valet  de  chambre  tells  the  maitre  d'hotel 
and  the  maitre  d'hotel  informs  her  officially  of 
the  coming  event. 

She  gets  the  bath.  What  does  she  do? 
Why,  merely  opens  the  door  of  the  bathroom, 
which  wasn't  locked,  and  turns  on  the  water. 
But,  of  course,  no  man  with  any  chivalry  in 
him  could  allow  a  harpy  to  be  put  to  all  that 
labour  without  pressing  her  to  accept  three 
cents  as  a  mark  of  personal  appreciation. 

Thus  the  maitre   d'hotel   and  the   valet  de 

chambre  and  the  harpy  go  on  all  day,   from 

six  in  the  morning  when  they  first  "enter  into 

functions"  until  heaven  knows  when  at  night 

when  they  leave  off,  and  they  keep  gathering  in 

two  cents  and  three  cents  and  even  five  cents 

at  a  time.     Then  presently,  I  suppose,  they  go 

off  and  spend  it  in  their  own  way.    The  maitre 

109 


Parisian  Pastimes 


d'hotel  transformed  into  a  cheap  Parisian  with 
a  dragon-fly  coat  and  a  sixty  cent  panama, 
dances  gaily  at  the  Bal  Wagram,  and  himself 
hands  out  coppers  to  the  musicians,  and  gives 
a  one  cent  tip  to  a  lower  order  of  maitre 
d'hotel.  The  harpy  goes  forth,  and  with  other 
harpies  absorbs  red  wine  and  indescribable 
cheese  at  eleven  at  night  in  a  crowded  little- 
cafe  on  the  crowded  sidewalk  of  a  street  about 
as  wide  as  a  wagon.  She  tips  the  waiter  who 
serves  her  at  the  rate  of  one  cent  per  half 
hour  of  attendance,  and  he,  I  suppose,  later  on 
tips  someone  else,  and  so  on  endlessly. 

In  this  way  about  fifty  thousand  people  In 
Paris  eke  out  a  livelihood  by  tipping  one  an- 
other. 

The  worst  part  of  the  tipping  system  is  that 
very  often  the  knowledge  that  tips  are  expected 
and  the  uncertainty  of  their  amount,  causes 
one  to  forego  a  great  number  of  things  that 
might  otherwise  be  enjoyable. 

I  brought  with  me  to  Paris,  for  example,  a 
letter  of  introduction  to  the  President  of  the 
Republic.      I    don't   say  this   in   any  boasting 

no 


Parisian  Pastimes 


spirit.  A  university  professor  can  always  get 
all  the  letters  of  introduction  that  he  wants. 
Everyone  knows  that  he  Is  too  simple  to  make 
any  commercial  use  of  them.  But  I  never  pre- 
sented this  letter  to  the  President.  What  was 
the  use?  It  wouldn't  have  been  worth  it.  He 
would  have  expected  a  tip,  and  of  course  in 
his  case  it  would  have  had  to  be  a  liberal  one, 
twenty-five  cents  straight  out.  Perhaps,  too, 
some  of  his  ministers  would  have  strolled  in, 
as  soon  as  they  saw  a  stranger,  on  the  chance 
of  picking  up  something.  Put  it  as  three  min- 
isters at  fifteen  cents  each,  that's  forty-five  cents 
or  a  total  of  seventy  cents  for  ten  minutes'  talk 
with  the  French  Government.  It's  not 
worth  it. 

In  all  Paris,  I  only  found  one  place  where 
tipping  is  absolutely  out  of  the  question.  That 
was  at  the  British  Embassy.  There  they  don't 
allow  it.  Not  only  the  clerks  and  the  secre- 
taries, but  even  the  Ambassador  himself  is  for- 
bidden to  take  so  much  as  the  smallest  gratuity. 

And  they  live  up  to  it. 
Ill 


Parisian  Pastimes 


That  is  why  I  still  feel  proud  of  having 
made  an  exception  to  the  rule. 

I  went  there  because  the  present  ambassador 
is  a  personal  friend  of  mine.  I  hadn't  known 
this  till  I  went  to  Paris,  and  I  may  say  in  fair- 
ness that  we  are  friends  no  longer:  as  soon  as 
I  came  away,  our  friendship  seemed  to  have 
ceased. 

I  will  make  no  secret  of  the  matter.  I 
wanted  permission  to  read  in  the  National 
Library  in  Paris.  All  Frenchmen  are  allowed 
to  read  there  and,  in  addition,  all  the  personal 
friends  of  the  foreign  ambassadors.  By  a  con- 
venient fiction,  everybody  is  the  friend  of  this 
ambassador,  and  is  given  a  letter  to  prove  it, 
provided  he  will  call  at  the  Embassy  and  get 
it.  That  is  how  I  came  to  be  a  friend  of  the 
British  Ambassador.  Whether  our  friendship 
will  ripen  into  anything  warmer  and  closer,  it 
is  not  for  me  to  say. 

But  I  went  to  the  Embassy. 

The  young  man  that  I  dealt  with  was,  I 
think,  a  secretary.  He  was — I  could  see  it  at 
once — that  perfect  thing    called    an    English 

112 


Parisian  Pastimes 


gentleman.  I  have  seldom  seen,  outside  of 
baseball  circles,  so  considerate  a  manner.  He 
took  my  card,  and  from  sheer  considerateness 
left  me  alone  for  half  an  hour.  Then  he  came 
back  for  a  moment  and  said  It  was  a  glorious 
day.  I  had  heard  this  phrase  so  often  In  Paris 
that  I  reached  into  my  pocket  for  ten  cents. 
But  something  in  the  quiet  dignity  of  the  young 
man  held  me  back.  So  I  merely  answered 
that  it  was  indeed  a  glorious  day,  and  that  the 
crops  would  soon  head  out  nicely  if  we  got 
this  sunshine,  provided  there  wasn't  dew 
enough  to  start  the  rust,  In  which  case  I  was 
afraid  that  if  an  early  frost  set  in  we  might 
be  badly  fooled.  He  said  "Indeed,"  and  asked 
me  if  I  had  read  the  last  London  Weekly 
Times.  I  said  that  I  had  not  seen  the  last  one; 
but  that  I  had  read  one  about  a  year  ago  and 
that  it  seemed  one  of  the  most  sparkling 
things  I  had  ever  read;  I  had  simply  roared 
over  it  from  cover  to  cover. 

He  looked  pleased  and  went  away. 

When  he  came  back,  he  had  the  letter  of 
commendation  in  his  hand. 

"3 


Parisian  Pastimes 


Would  you  believe  It?  The  civility  of  it  I 
They  had  printed  the  letter,  every  word  of  It 
— except  my  own  name — and  it  explained  all 
about  the  ambassador  and  me  being  close 
friends,  and  told  of  his  desire  to  have  me  read 
in  the  National  Library. 

I  took  the  letter,  and  I  knew  of  course  that 
the  moment  had  come  to  do  something  hand- 
some for  the  young  man.  But  he  looked  so 
calm  that  I  still  hesitated. 

I  took  ten  cents  out  of  my  pocket  and  held 
It  where  the  light  could  glitter  from  every 
point  of  Its  surface  full  In  his  face. 

And  I  said 

"My  dear  young  friend,  I  hope  I  don't  In- 
sult you.  You  are,  I  can  see  it,  an  English  gen- 
tleman. Your  manner  betrays  It.  I,  too, 
though  I  may  seem  only  what  I  am,  had  I  not 
been  brought  up  In  Toronto,  might  have  been 
like  you.  But  enough  of  this  weakness, — will 
you  take  ten  cents?" 

He  hesitated.  He  looked  all  round.  I  could 
see  that  he  was  making  a  great  effort.     The 

H4 


Something  in  tiie  quiet  dignity  of  the  young  man  held  me. 


Parisian  Pastimes 


spirit  of  Paris  battled  against  his  better  nature. 
He  was  tempted,  but  he  didn't  fall. 

"I'm  sorry,  sir,"  he  said.  "I'd  like  to  take 
it,  but  I'm  afraid  I  mustn't." 

"Young  man,"  I  said,  "I  respect  your  feel- 
ings. You  have  done  me  a  service.  If  you 
ever  fall  into  want  and  need  a  position  in  the 
Canadian  Cabinet,  or  a  seat  in  our  Senate,  let 

me  know  at  once."  , 

I 

I  left  him. 

Then  by  an  odd  chance,  as  I  passed  to  the 
outer  door,  there  was  the  British  Ambassador 
himself.  He  was  standing  beside  the  door 
waiting  to  open  it.  There  was  no  mistaking 
him.  I  could  tell  by  his  cocked  hat  and  brass 
buttons  and  the  brass  chain  across  his  chest 
that  it  was  the  Ambassador.  The  way  in  which 
he  swung  the  door  back  and  removed  his  hat 
showed  him  a  trained  diplomat. 

The  moment  had  come.  I  still  held  my  ten 
cents. 

"My  lord,"  I  said,  "I  understand  your  po- 
sition as  the  only  man  in  Paris  who  must  not 
accept  a  tip,  but  I  insist." 

IIS 


Parisian  Pastimes 


I  slipped  the  money  into  his  hand. 

"Thank'ee  kindly,  sir,"  said  the  Ambassa- 
dor. 

Diplomatically  speaking,  the  incident  was 
closed. 


it6 


///. — The  Simple  Life  in  Paris 

PARIS — at  least  the  Paris  of  luxury  and 
fashion — is  a  childless  city.  Its 
streets  are  thronged  all  day  with  a 
crowd  that  passes  in  endless  succession 
but  with  never  a  child  among  them.  You  may 
stand  on  the  boulevards  and  count  a  thousand 
grown-up  persons  for  one  child  that  goes  by. 
The  case,  of  course,  is  not  so  extreme  in  the 
quieter  parts  of  the  city.  I  have  seen  children, 
sometimes  two  or  three  together,  in  the 
Champs  Elysees,  In  the  garden  of  the 
Tuileries  I  once  saw  six  all  in  a  group.  They 
seemed  to  be  playing.  A  passer-by  succeeded 
in  getting  a  snapshot  of  them  without  driving 
them  away.  In  the  poorer  districts,  there  are 
any  quantity  of  children,  even  enough  to  sell, 
but  in  the  Paris  of  the  rich,  the  child  is  con- 
spicuous by  its  absence.  The  foreign  visitors 
come  without  their  children.  The  true  Parisian 
lady  has  pretty  well  gone  out  of  the  business. 

n7 


Parisian  Pastimes 


Here  and  there  you  may  see  driving  past 
with  its  mother  in  an  open  barouche,  or  pa- 
rading the  Rue  de  la  Paix  on  the  hand  of  its 
nurse,  the  doll-Hke  substitute  for  old-time  in- 
fancy, the  fashionable  Parisian  child.  As  far 
as  the  sex  can  be  determined  by  looking  at  it, 
it  is  generally  a  girl.  It  is  dressed  in  the 
height  of  fashion.  A  huge  picture  hat  reaches 
out  in  all  directions  from  its  head.  Long  gloves 
encase  its  little  arms  to  prevent  it  from  mak- 
ing a  free  use  of  them.  A  dainty  coat  of 
powder  on  its  face  preserves  it  from  the  dis- 
torting effect  of  a  smile.  Its  little  hundred 
dollar  frock  reaches  down  in  a  sweet  simplicity 
of  outline.  It  has  a  belt  that  runs  round  its 
thighs  to  divide  it  into  two  harmonious  parts. 
Below  that  are  bare  pink  legs  ending  in  little 
silk  socks  at  a  dollar  an  inch  and  wee  slippers 
clasped  with  a  simple  emerald  buckle.  Therein, 
of  course,  the  child  only  obeys  the  reigning 
fashion.  Simplicity, — so  I  am  informed  by 
the  last  number  of  La  Mode  Parisienne, — is 
the  dominant  note  of  Parisian  dress  to-day, — 
simplicity,  plainness,  freedom  from  all  display. 

ii8 


Parisian  Pastimes 


A  French  lady  wears  in  her  hair  at  the  Opera 
a  single,  simple  tiara  bound  with  a  plain  row 
of  solitaire  diamonds.  It  is  so  exquisitely  sim- 
ple in  its  outline  that  you  can  see  the  single  dia- 
monds sticking  out  from  it  and  can  count  up 
the  price  of  each.  The  Parisian  gentleman 
wears  in  his  button-hole  merely  a  single  orchid, 
— not  half  a  dozen, — and  pins  his  necktie  with 
one  plain,  ordinary  ruby,  set  in  a  perfectly  un- 
ostentatious sunburst  of  sapphires.  There  is 
no  doubt  of  the  superiority  of  this  Parisian  sim- 
plicity. To  me,  when  it  broke  upon  me  in 
reading  La  Mode  Parisienne,  it  came  as  a  kind 
of  inspiration.  I  took  away  the  stuffy  black 
ribbon  with  its  stupidly  elaborate  knot  from 
my  Canadian  Christie  hat  and  wound  a  single 
black  ostrich  feather  about  it  fastened  with 
just  the  plainest  silver  aigrette.  When  I  had 
put  that  on  and  pinned  a  piece  of  old  lace  to 
the  tail  of  my  coat  with  just  one  safety  pin,  I 
walked  the  street  with  the  quiet  dignity  of  a 
person  whose  one  idea  is  not  to  be  conspicuous. 
But  this  is  a  digression.  The  child,  I  was 
saying,  wears  about  two  hundred  worth  of  vis- 

iig 


Parisian  Pastimes 


ible  clothing  upon  it;  and  I  believe  that  if  you 
were  to  take  it  up  by  its  ten-dollar  slipper  and 
hold  it  upside  down,  you  would  see  about  fifty 
dollars  more.  The  French  child  has  been  con- 
verted into  an  elaborately  dressed  doll.  It  is 
altogether  a  thing  of  show,  an  appendage  of 
its  fashionably  dressed  mother,  with  frock  and 
parasol  to  match.  It  is  no  longer  a  child,  but 
a  living  toy  or  plaything. 

Even  on  these  terms  the  child  is  not  a  sue- 
cess.  It  has  a  rival  who  is  rapidly  beating  it 
off  the  ground.  This  is  the  Parisian  dog.  As 
an  implement  of  fashion,  as  a  set-off  to  the 
fair  sex,  as  the  recipient  of  ecstatic  kisses  and 
ravishing  hugs,  the  Parisian  dog  can  give  the 
child  forty  points  in  a  hundred  and  win  out.  It 
can  dress  better,  look  more  intelligent,  behave 
better,  bark  better, — in  fact,  the  child  is  sim- 
ply not  in  it. 

This  is  why,  I  suppose,  in  the  world  of  Pa- 
risian luxury,  the  dog  is  ousting  the  infant  alto- 
gether. You  will  see,  as  I  said,  no  children  on 
the  boulevards  and  avenues.  You  will  see  dogs 
by    the    hundred.       Every     motor    or    open 

120 


The  Parisian  dog. 


Parisian  Pastimes 


barouche  that  passes  up  the  Champs  Elysees, 
with  its  little  white  cloud  of  fluffy  parasols  and 
garden-hats,  has  a  dainty,  beribboned  dog  sit- 
ting among  its  occupants:  in  every  avenue  and 
promenade  you  will  see  hundreds  of  clipped 
poodles  and  toy  spaniels;  in  all  the  fashionable 
churches  you  will  see  dogs  bowed  at  their  de- 
votions. 

It  was  a  fair  struggle.  The  child  had  its 
chance  and  was  beaten.  The  child  couldn't 
dress:  the  dog  could.  The  child  couldn't  or 
wouldn't  pray:  the  dog  could, — or  at  least  he 
learnt  how.  No  doubt  it  came  awkwardly  at 
first,  but  he  set  himself  to  it  till  nowadays  a 
French  dog  can  enter  a  cathedral  with  just  as 
much  reverence  as  his  mistress,  and  can  pray 
in  the  corner  of  the  pew  with  the  same  humility 
as  hers.  When  you  get  to  know  the  Parisian 
dogs,  you  can  easily  tell  a  Roman  Catholic 
dog  from  a  Low  Church  Anglican.  I  knew  a 
dog  once  that  was  converted, — everybody  said 
from  motives  of  policy, — from  a  Presbyterian, 
— ^but,  stop,  it's  not  fair  to  talk  about  it, — the 
dog  is  dead  now,  and  it's  not  right  to  speak 


Parisian  Pastimes 


ill  of  its  belief,  no  matter  how  mistaken  it  may 
have  been. 

However,  let  that  pass,  what  I  was  saying 
was  that  between  the  child  and  the  dog,  each 
had  its  chance  in  a  fair  open  contest  and  the 
child  is  nowhere. 

People,  who  have  never  seen,  even  from  the 
outside,  the  Parisian  world  of  fashion,  have  no 
idea  to  what  an  extent  it  has  been  invaded  by 
the  dog  craze.  Dogs  are  driven  about  in 
motors  and  open  carriages.  They  are  elab- 
orately clipped  and  powdered  and  beribboned 
by  special  "coiffeurs."  They  wear  little  buckled 
coats  and  blankets,  and  in  motors, — I  don't 
feel  quite  sure  of  this, — they  wear  motor  gog- 
gles. There  are  at  least  three  or  four — and 
for  all  I  know  there  may  be  more — fashion- 
able shops  in  Paris  for  dogs'  supplies.  There 
is  one  that  any  curious  visitor  may  easily  find 
at  once  in  the  Rue  des  Petits  Champs  close 
to  the  Avenue  de  I'Opera.  There  is  another 
one  midway  in  the  galleries  of  the  Palais 
Royal.  In  these  shops  you  will  see,  in  the 
first  place,  the  chains,  collars,  and  whips  that 

122 


Parisian  Pastimes 


are  marks  of  the  servitude  in  which  dogs  still 
live  (though,  by  the  way,  there  are  already,  I 
think,  dog  suffragettes  heading  a  very  strong 
movement).  You  will  see  also  the  most  de- 
licious, fashionable  dog  coats,  very,  very  sim- 
ple, fastened  in  front  with  one  silver  clasp,  only 
one.  In  the  Palais  Royal  shop  they  advertise, 
"Newest  summer  models  for  19 13  in  dogs' 
tailoring."  There  are  also  dogs'  beds  made 
in  wickerwork  in  cradle  shape  with  eider-down 
coverlets  worked  over  with  silk. 

A  Httle  while  ago,  the  New  York  papers 
were  filled  with  an  account  of  a  dog's  lunch 
given  at  the  Vanderbilt  Hotel  by  an  ultra-fash- 
ionable American  lady.  It  was  recorded  that 
Vi  Sin,  the  Pekin  Spaniel  of  Mrs.  H.  of 
New  York,  was  host  to  about  ten  thousand 
dollars  worth  of  "smart"  dogs.  I  do  not  know 
whether  or  not  this  story  is  true,  for  I  only 
read  it  in  the  Parisian  papers.  But  certain  it 
is  that  the  episode  would  have  made  no  sensa- 
tion in  Paris.  A  dog  eating  in  a  restaurant 
is  a  most  ordinary  spectacle.  Only  a  few  days 
ago  I  had  lunch  with  a  dog, — a  very  quiet, 

123 


Parisian  Pastimes 


sensible  Belgian  poodle,  very  simply  dressed  in 
a  plain  morning  stomach  coat  of  ultramarine 
with  leather  insertions.  I  took  quite  a  fancy  to 
him.  When  I  say  that  I  had  lunch  with  him, 
I  ought  to  explain  that  he  had  a  lady,  his  mis- 
tress, with  him, — that  also  is  quite  usual  in 
Paris.  But  I  didn't  know  her,  and  she  sat  on 
the  further  side  of  him,  so  that  I  confined  my- 
self to  ordinary  table  civilities  with  the  dog.  I 
was  having  merely  a  plain  omelette,  from  mo- 
tives of  economy,  and  the  dog  had  a  little  dish 
of  entrecote  d'agneau  aux  asperges  maitre 
d'hotel.  I  took  some  of  it  while  the  lady  was 
speaking  to  the  waiter  and  found  it  excellent. 
You  may  believe  it  or  not,  but  the  entry  of  a 
dog  into  a  French  restaurant  and  his  being 
seated  at  a  table  and  having  his  food  ordered 
creates  not  the  slightest  sensation.  To  bring 
a  child  into  a  really  good  restaurant  would,  I 
imagine,  be  looked  upon  as  rather  a  serious 
affair. 

Not  only  is  the  dog  the  darling  of  the  hour 
during  his  lifetime,  but  even  in  death  he  is 
not  forgotten.    There  is  in  Paris  a  special  dog 

124 


Parisian  Pastimes 


cemetery.  It  lies  among  the  drooping  trees  of 
a  little  island  in  the  Seine,  called  the  Isle  de  la 
Recette,  and  you  may  find  it  by  taking  the 
suburban  tramway  for  Asnieres.  It  has  little 
tombstones,  monuments,  and  flowered  walks. 
One  sorrow-stricken  master  has  inscribed  over 
a  dog's  grave, — "Plus  je  z'ois  Ics  hommes,  plus 
j'aime  mou  chien."  The  most  notable  feature 
of  the  cemetery  is  the  monument  of  Barry,  a 
St.  Bernard  dog.  The  inscription  states  that 
he  saved  forty  lives  in  the  i\lps. 

But  the  dog  craze  is  after  all  only  a  sign  and 
sample  of  the  prevailing  growth  and  extent  of 
fashionable  luxury.  Nowhere  in  the  world,  I 
suppose,  is  this  more  conspicuous  than  in  Paris, 
the  very  Vanity  Fair  of  mundane  pleasure. 
The  hostesses  of  dinners,  dances  and  fetes  vie 
with  one  another  in  seeking  bizarre  and  ex- 
travagant effects.  Here  is  a  good  example  of 
it  taken  from  actual  life  the  other  day.  It  is 
an  account  of  an  "oriental  fete"  given  at  a 
private  mansion  in  Paris. 

It  runs  thus: — "The  sumptuous  Paris  man- 
sion of  the  Comtesse  Aynard  de  Chabrillan  in 
US 


Parisian  Pastimes 


the  Rue  Christophe-Colomb  was  converted  Into 
a  veritable  scene  from  the  'Thousand  and  One 
Nights'  on  the  occasion  of  a  Persian  fete  given 
by  her  to  a  large  company  of  friends. 

"In  the  courtyard  an  Immense  tent  was 
erected,  hung  with  superb  Persian  stuffs  and 
tapestries,  and  here  the  elite  of  Paris  assem- 
bled In  gorgeous  Oriental  costumes. 

"The  countess  herself  presided  In  a  magnifi- 
cent Persian  costume  of  green  and  gold,  with 
an  Immense  white  aigrette  In  her  hair." 

Notice  It.  The  simplicity  of  It  I  Only 
green  and  gold  In  her  costume,  no  silver,  no 
tin,  no  galvanized  Iron,  just  gold,  plain  gold; 
and  only  "one  immense  white  aigrette."  The 
quiet  dignity  of  it! 

The  article  goes  on: — "Each  of  the  sensa- 
tional entries  was  announced  by  M.  Andre  de 
Fouquleres,  the  arbiter  of  Parisian  elegance. 

"One  of  the  most  striking  spectacles  of  the 
evening  was  the  appearance  of  Princesse  P. 
d'Arenberg,  mounted  on  an  elephant,  richly 
bedecked  with  Indian  trappings.  Then  came 
the  Duchesse  de  Clermont-Tonnerre  and  the 

126 


Parisian  Pastimes 


Comtesse  Stanislas  de  Castellane  in  gold  cages, 
followed  by  the  Marquise  de  Brantes,  in  a 
flower-strewn  Egyptian  litter,  accompanied  by 
Pharaoh  and  his  slaves. 

"The  Comtesse  de  Lubersac  danced  an 
Oriental  measure  with  charming  grace,  and 
Prince  Luis  Fernando  of  Spain,  in  an  ethereal 
costume,  his  features  stained  a  greenish  hue, 
executed  a  Hindoo  dance  before  the  assembly." 

Can  you  beat  it?  His  features  stained  with 
a  greenish  hue!  Now  look  at  thatl  He 
might  have  put  on  high  grade  prepared  paint 
or  clear  white  lead, — he's  rich  enough, — but, 
no,  just  a  quiet  shingle  stain  is  enough  for  him. 

I  cannot  resist  adding  from  the  same  source 
the  list  of  the  chief  guests.  Anybody  desiring 
a  set  of  names  for  a  burlesque  show  to  run 
three  hundred  nights  on  the  circuit  may  have 
them  free  of  charge  or  without  infringement 
of  copyright. 

"Nearly  everyone  prominent  in  Paris  society 
was  present,  including  the  Maharajah  of 
Kapurthala,  Princess  Prem  Kaur,  Prince  Aga 
Khan,  the  Austrian  Ambassador  and  Countess 

127 


Parisian  Pastimes 


Szecsen,  the  Persian  and  Bulgarian  Ministers, 
Mme.  Standoff,  Due  and  Duchesse  de  Noailles, 
Comtesse  A.  Potocka,  Marquis  and  Marquise 
de  Mun,  Comtesse  du  Bourg  de  Bozas,  Mrs. 
Moore,  Comte  and  Comtesse  G.  de  Segonzec 
and  Prince  and  Princess  de  Croy." 

I  am  sorry  that  "Mrs.  Moore"  was  there. 
She  must  have  slipped  in  unnoticed. 

What  is  not  generally  known  is  that  I  was 
there  myself.  I  appeared, — in  rivalry  with 
Prince  Luis  Fernando — dressed  as  a  Bombay 
soda  water  bottle,  with  aerial  opalescent  streaks 
of  light  flashing  from  the  costume  which  was 
bound  with  single  wire. 


128 


IV. — A  Visit  to  Versailles 


WHAT!"  said  the  man  from  Kansas, 
looking  up  from  his  asparagus, 
"do  you  mean  to  say  that  you 
have  never  seen  the  Palace  of 
Versailles?" 

"No,"  I  said  very  firmly,  "I  have  not." 

"Nor  the  fountains  in  the  gardens?" 

"No." 

"Nor  the  battle  pictures?" 

"No." 

"And  the  Hall  of  Mirrors,"— added  the 
fat  lady  from  Georgia. 

"And  Madame  du  Barry's  bed" — said  her 
husband. 

"Her  which,"  I  asked,  with  some  interest. 

"Her  bed." 

"All  right,"  I  said,  "I'll  go." 

I  knew,  of  course,  that  I  had  to.  Every 
tourist  in  Paris  has  got  to  go  and  see  Ver- 
sailles. Otherwise  the  superiority  of  the  others 
becomes    insufferable,    with    foreigners    it    is 

139 


Parisian  Pastimes 


different.  If  they  worry  one  about  palaces 
and  cathedrals  and  such — the  Chateau  at  Ver- 
sailles, and  the  Kaiserhof  and  the  Duomo  at 
Milan — I  answer  them  in  kind.  I  ask  them 
if  they  have  ever  seen  the  Schlitzerhof  at 
Milwaukee  and  the  Anheuserbusch  at  St. 
Louis,  and  the  Dammo  at  Niagara,  and 
the  Toboggo  at  Montreal.  That  quiets  them 
wonderfully. 

But,  as  I  say,  I  had  to  go. 

You  get  to  Versailles — as  the  best  of  various 
ways  of  transport — by  means  of  a  contrivance 
something  between  a  train  and  a  street  car. 
It  has  a  little  puffing  steam-engine  and  two 
cars — double  deckers — with  the  top  deck  open 
to  the  air  and  covered  with  a  wooden  roof  on 
rods.  The  lower  part  inside  is  called  the 
first-class  and  a  seat  in  it  costs  ten  cents  extra. 
Otherwise  nobody  would  care  to  ride  in  it. 
The  engine  is  a  quaint  little  thing  and  wears 
a  skirt,  painted  green,  all  around  it,  so  that  you 
can  just  see  the  tips  of  its  wheels  peeping 
modestly  out  below.  It  was  a  great  relief  to 
me  to  see  this  engine.    It  showed  that  there 

130 


Parisian  Pastimes 


is  such  a  thing  as  French  delicacy  after  all. 
There  are  so  many  sights  along  the  boulevards 
that  bring  the  carmine  blush  to  the  face  of  the 
tourist  (from  the  twisting  of  his  neck  in  trying 
to  avoid  seeing  them),  that  it  is  well  to  know 
that  the  French  draw  the  line  somewhere. 
The  sight  of  the  bare  wheels  of  an  engine  is 
too  much  for  them. 

The  little  train  whirls  its  way  out  of  Paris, 
past  the  great  embankment  and  the  fortifica- 
tions, and  goes  rocking  along  among  green 
trees  whose  branches  sweep  its  sides,  and  trim 
villas  with  stone  walls  around  quaint  gardens. 
At  every  moment  it  passes  little  inns  and 
suburban  restaurants  with  cool  arbours  in  front 
of  them,  and  waiters  in  white  coats  pouring 
out  glasses  of  red  wine.  It  makes  one  thirsty 
just  to  look  at  them. 

In  due  time  the  little  train  rattles  and  rocks 
itself  over  the  dozen  miles  or  so  that  separate 
Paris  from  Versailles,  and  sets  you  down  right 
in  front  of  the  great  stone  court-yard  of  the 
palace.  There  through  the  long  hours  of  a 
summer   afternoon  you  may   feast  your  eyes 

131 


Parisian  Pastimes 


upon  the  wonderland  of  beauty  that  rose  at 
the  command  of  the  grand  monarch,  Louis 
XIV,  from  the  sanded  plains  and  wooded  up- 
land that  marked  the  spot  two  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago. 

All  that  royal  munificence  could  effect  was 
lavished  on  the  making  of  the  palace.  So  vast 
Is  it  in  size  that  in  the  days  of  its  greatest 
splendour  it  harboured  ten  thousand  inmates. 
The  sheer  length  of  it  from  side  to  side  is  only 
about  a  hundred  yards  short  of  half  a  mile. 
To  make  the  grounds  the  King's  chief  land- 
scape artist  and  his  hundreds  of  workers 
laboured  for  twenty  years.  They  took  in,  as 
it  were,  the  whole  landscape.  The  beauty  of 
their  work  lies  not  only  in  the  wonderful 
terraces,  gardens,  groves  and  fountains  that 
extend  from  the  rear  of  the  Chateau,  but  in 
its  blending  with  the  scene  beyond.  It  is  so 
planned  that  no  distant  house  or  building 
breaks  into  the  picture.  The  vista  ends  every- 
where with  the  waving  woods  of  the  purple 
distance. 

Louis  XIV  spent  in  all,  they  say,  a  hundred 
132 


Parisian  Pastimes 


million  dollars  on  the  making  of  the  palace. 
When  made  it  was  filled  with  treasures  of  art 
not  to  be  measured  in  price.  It  was  meant  to 
be,  and  it  remains,  the  last  word  of  royal 
grandeur.  The  King's  court  at  Versailles 
became  the  sun  round  which  gravitated  the 
fate  and  fortune  of  his  twenty  million  sub- 
jects. Admission  within  its  gates  was  itself 
a  mark  of  royal  favour.  Now,  my  person 
with  fifteen  cents  may  ride  out  from  Paris 
on  the  double-decked  street  car  and  wander 
about  the  palace  at  will.  For  a  five  cent  tip 
to  a  guide  you  may  look  through  the  private 
apartments  of  Marie  Antoinette,  and  for  two 
cents  you  may  check  your  umbrella  while  you 
inspect  the  bedroom  of  Napoleon  the  First. 
For  nothing  at  all  you  may  stand  on  the  vast 
terrace  behind  the  Chateau  and  picture  to 
yourself  the  throng  of  gay  ladies  in  paniered 
skirts,  and  powdered  gentlemen,  in  sea-green 
inexpressibles,  who  walked  among  its  groves 
and  fountains  two  hundred  years  ago.  The 
palace  of  the  Kings  has  become  the  playground 
of  the  democracy. 

133 


Parisian  Pastimes 


The  palace — or  the  Chateau,  as  it  is  modestly 
named — stands  crosswise  upon  an  elevation  that 
dominates  the  scene  for  miles  around.  The 
whole  building  throughout  is  only  of  three 
stories,  for  French  architecture  has  a  horror 
of  high  buildings.  The  two  great  wings  of 
the  Chateau  reach  sideways,  north  and  south; 
and  one,  a  shorter  one,  runs  westwards  to- 
wards the  rear.  In  the  front  space  between 
the  wings  is  a  vast  paved  court-yard — the  Royal 
Court — shut  in  by  a  massive  iron  fence.  Into 
this  court  penetrated,  one  autumn  evening  in 
1789,  the  raging  mob  led  by  the  women  of 
Paris,  who  had  come  to  drag  the  descendant 
of  the  Grand  Monarch  into  the  captivity  that 
ended  only  with  the  guillotine.  Here  they 
lighted  their  bonfires  and  here  they  sang  and 
shrieked  and  shivered  throughout  the  night. 
That  night  of  the  fifth  of  October  was  the  real 
end  of  monarchy  in  France. 

No  one,  I  think — not  even  my  friend  from 
Kansas  who  boasted  that  he  had  "put  in" 
three  hours  at  Versailles — could  see  ail  that  is 
within   the    Chateau.      But   there    are   certain 

134 


Parisian  Pastimes 


things  which  no  tourist  passes  by.  One  of 
them  is  the  suite  of  rooms  of  Louis  XIV, 
a  great  series  of  square  apartments  all  opening 
sideways  Into  each  other  with  gilded  doors  as 
large  as  those  of  a  barn,  and  with  about  as 
much  privacy  as  a  railway  station.  One  room 
was  the  King's  council  chamber;  next  to  this, 
a  larger  one,  was  the  "wig-room,"  where  the 
royal  mind  selected  its  wig  for  the  day  and 
where  the  royal  hair-dresser  performed  his 
stupendous  task.  Besides  this  again  is  the 
King's  bedroom.  Preserved  in  It,  within  a 
little  fence,  still  stands  the  bed  In  which 
Louis  XIV  died  in  1715,  after  a  reign  of 
seventy-two  years.  The  bedroom  would  easily 
hold  three  hundred  people.  Outside  of  It  is 
a  great  antechamber,  where  the  courtiers 
jealously  waited  their  turn  to  be  present  at 
the  King's  "lever,"  or  "getting  up,"  eager  to 
have  the  supreme  honour  of  holding  the  royal 
breeches. 

But  if  the  King's  apartments  are  sumptuous, 
they  are  as  nothing  to  the  Hall  of  Mirrors, 
the  showroom  of  the  whole  palace,  and  esti- 

135 


Parisian  Pastimes 


mated  to  be  the  most  magnificent  single  room 
in  the  world.  It  extends  clear  across  the  end 
of  the  rear  wing  and  has  a  length  of  236  feet. 
It  is  lighted  by  vast  windows  that  reach  almost 
to  the  lofty  arch  that  forms  its  ceiHng;  the 
floor  is  of  polished  inlaid  wood,  on  which 
there  stood  in  Louis  the  Great's  time,  tables, 
chairs,  and  other  furniture  of  solid  silver. 
The  whole  inner  side  of  the  room  is  formed 
by  seventeen  enormous  mirrors  set  in  spaces 
to  correspond  in  shape  to  the  window  oppo- 
site, and  fitted  in  between  with  polished 
marble.  Above  them  runs  a  cornice  of  ghtter- 
ing  gilt,  and  over  that  again  the  ceiling  curves 
in  a  great  arch,  each  panel  of  it  bearing  some 
picture  to  recall  the  victories  of  the  Grand 
Monarch.  Ungrateful  posterity  has  somewhat 
forgotten  the  tremendous  military  achieve- 
ments of  Louis  XIV — the  hardships  of  his 
campaign  in  the  Netherlands  in  which  the  staff 
of  the  royal  cusine  was  cut  down  to  one 
hundred  cooks — the  passage  of  the  Rhine,  in 
which  the  King  actually  crossed  the  river  from 
one   side   to  the  other,   and   so   on.      But  the 

136 


Parisian  Pastimes 


student  of  history  can  live  again  the  triumphs 
of  Louis  in  this  Hall  of  Mirrors.  It  is  an 
irony  of  history  that  in  this  room,  after  the 
conquest  of  187 1,  the  King  of  Prussia  was 
proclaimed  German  Emperor  by  his  subjects 
and  his  allies. 

But  if  one  wants  to  see  battle  pictures,  one 
has  but  to  turn  to  the  north  wing  of  the 
Chateau.  There  you  have  them,  room  after 
room — twenty,  thirty,  fifty  roomsful — I  don't 
know  how  many — the  famous  gallery  of  battles, 
depicting  the  whole  military  history  of  France 
from  the  days  of  King  Clovis  till  the  French 
Revolution.  They  run  in  historical  order. 
The  pictures  begin  with  battles  of  early  bar- 
barians— men  with  long  hair  wielding  huge 
battle-axes  with  their  eyes  blazing,  while  other 
barbarians  prod  at  them  with  pikes  or  take  a 
sweep  at  them  with  a  two-handed  club.  After 
that  there  are  rooms  full  of  crusade  pictures — 
crusaders  fighting  the  Arabs,  crusaders  invest- 
ing Jerusalem,  crusaders  raising  the  siege  of 
Malta  and  others  raising  the  siege  of  Rhodes; 
all  very  picturesque,  with  the  blue  Mediter- 
^37 


Parisian   Pastimes 


ranean,  the  yellow  sand  of  the  desert,  prancing 
steeds  in  nickel-plated  armour  and  knights 
plumed  and  caparisoned,  or  whatever  it  is,  and 
wearing  as  many  crosses  as  an  ambulance  emer- 
gency staff.  All  of  these  battles  were  appar- 
ently quite  harmless,  that  is  the  strange  thing 
about  these  battle  pictures :  the  whole  thing,  as 
depicted  for  the  royal  eye,  is  wonderfully  full 
of  colour  and  picturesque,  but,  as  far  as  one 
can  see,  quite  harmless.  Nobody  seems  to  be 
getting  hurt,  wild-looking  men  are  swinging 
maces  round,  but  you  can  see  that  they  won't 
hit  anybody.  A  battle-axe  is  being  brought 
down  with  terrific  force,  but  somebody  is 
thrusting  up  a  steel  shield  just  in  time  to  meet 
It.  There  are  no  signs  of  blood  or  injury. 
Everybody  seems  to  be  getting  along  finely  and 
to  be  having  the  most  invigorating  physical  ex- 
ercise. Here  and  here,  perhaps,  the  artist  de- 
picts somebody  jammed  down  under  a  beam  or 
lying  under  the  feet  of  a  horse;  but  if  you  look 
close  you  see  that  the  beam  isn't  really  pressing 
on  him,  and  that  the  horse  is  not  really  step- 
ping on  his  stomach.     In  fact  the  man  is  per- 

138 


Parisian  Pastimes 


fectly  comfortable,  and  is,  at  the  moment,  tak- 
ing aim  at  somebody  else  with  a  two-string 
crossbow,  which  would  have  deadly  effect  if  he 
wasn't  ass  enough  to  aim  right  at  the  middle  of 
a  cowhide  shield. 

You  notice  this  quality  more  and  more  In 
the  pictures  as  the  history  moves  on.  After 
the  invention  of  gunpowder,  when  the  com- 
batants didn't  have  to  be  locked  together,  but 
could  be  separated  by  fields,  and  httle  groves 
and  quaint  farm-houses,  the  battle  seems  to 
get  quite  lost  in  the  scenery.  It  spreads  out 
into  the  landscape  until  it  becomes  one  of  the 
prettiest,  quietest  scenes  that  heart  could  wish. 
I  know  nothing  so  drowsily  comfortable  as  the 
pictures  in  this  gallery  that  show  the  battles 
of  the  seventeenth  century, — the  Grand  Mon- 
arch's own  particular  epoch.  This  is  a  wide, 
rolling  landscape  with  here  and  there  little 
clusters  of  soldiers  to  add  a  touch  of  colour 
to  the  foliage  of  the  woods;  there  are  woolly 
little  puffs  of  smoke  rising  in  places  to  show 
that  the  artillery  is  at  its  dreamy  work  on  a 
hill  side ;  near  the  foreground  is  a  small  group 

139 


Parisian  Pastimes 


of  generals  standing  about  a  tree  and  gazing 
through  glasses  at  the  dim  purple  of  the  back- 
ground. There  are  sheep  and  cattle  grazing 
in  all  the  unused  parts  of  the  battle,  the  whole 
thing  has  a  touch  of  quiet,  rural  feeling  that 
goes  right  to  the  heart.  I  have  seen  people 
from  the  ranching  district  of  the  Middle  West 
stand  before  these  pictures  in  tears. 

It  is  strange  to  compare  this  sort  of  thing 
with  some  of  the  modern  French  pictures. 
There  is  realism  enough  and  to  spare  in  them. 
In  the  Salon  exhibition  a  year  or  two  ago,  for 
instance,  there  was  one  that  represented  lions 
turned  loose  into  an  arena  to  eat  up  Chris- 
tians. I  can  imagine  exactly  how  a  Louis 
Quatorze  artist  would  have  dealt  with  the 
subject, — an  arena,  prettily  sanded,  with  here 
and  there  gooseberry  bushes  and  wild  gilly 
flowers  (not  too  wild,  of  course),  lions  with 
flowing  manes,  in  noble  attitudes,  about  to 
roar, — tigers,  finely  developed,  about  to  spring, 
—Christians  just  going  to  pray, — and  through 
it  all  a  genial  open-air  feeling  very  soothing 
to  the  royal  senses.     Not  so  the  artist  of  to- 

140 


Parisian  Pastimes 


day.  The  picture  in  the  Salon  is  of  blood. 
There  are  torn  limbs  gnawed  by  crouching 
beasts,  as  a  dog  holds  and  gnaws  a  bone; 
there  are  faces  being  torn,  still  quivering,  from 
the  writhing  body, — in  fact,  perhaps  after  all 
there  is  something  to  be  said  for  the  way  the 
Grand  Monarch  arranged  his  gallery. 

The  battle  pictures  and  the  Hall  of  Mirrors, 
and  the  fountains  and  so  on,  are,  I  say,  the 
things  best  worth  seeing  at  Versailles.  Every- 
body says  so.  I  really  wish  now  that  I  had 
seen  them.  But  I  am  free  to  confess  that 
I  am  a  poor  sightseer  at  the  best.  As  soon  as 
I  get  actually  in  reach  of  a  thing  it  somehow 
dwindles  in  importance.  I  had  a  friend  once, 
now  a  distinguished  judge  in  the  United 
States,  who  suffered  much  in  this  way.  He 
travelled  a  thousand  miles  to  reach  the  World's 
Fair,  but  as  soon  as  he  had  arrived  at  a  com- 
fortable hotel  in  Chicago,  he  was  unable  to 
find  the  energy  to  go  out  to  the  Fair  grounds. 
He  went  once  to  visit  Niagara  Falls,  but  failed 
to  see  the  actual  water,  partly  because  it  no 

141 


Parisian  Pastimes 


longer   seemed  necessary,    partly  because   his 
room  In  the  hotel  looked  the  other  way. 

Personally  I  plead  guilty  to  something  of 
the  same  spirit.  Just  where  you  alight  from 
the  steam  tramway  at  Versailles,  you  will  find 
close  on  your  right,  a  little  open-air  cafe,  with 
tables  under  a  trellis  of  green  vines.  It  is  as 
cool  a  retreat  of  mingled  sun  and  shadow  as 
I  know.  There  is  red  wine  at  two  francs  and 
long  imported  cigars  of  as  soft  a  flavour  as 
even  Louis  the  Fourteenth  could  have  desired. 
The  idea  of  leaving  a  grotto  like  that  to  go 
trapesing  all  over  a  hot  stuffy  palace  with  a 
lot  of  fool  tourists,  seemed  ridiculous.  But  I 
bought  there  a  little  illustrated  book  called  the 
Chateau  de  Versailles,  which  interested  me  so 
extremely  that  I  decided  that,  on  some  reason- 
able opportunity,  I  would  go  and  visit  the 
place. 


142 


Personally  I  plead  guilty  to  something  of  the  same  spirit. 


V. — Paris  at  Night 


WHAT  Ah'd  like  to  do,"  says  the 
Fat  Lady  from  Georgia,  settling 
back  comfortably  in  her  seat 
after  her  five-dollar  dinner  at  the 
Cafe  American,  while  her  husband  is  figuring 
whether  ten  francs  is  enough  to  give  to  the 
waiter,  "is  to  go  and  see  something  real 
wicked.  Ah  tell  him  (the  word  'him'  is  used 
in  Georgia  to  mean  husband)  that  while  we're 
here  Ah  just  want  to  see  everything  that's 
going." 

"All  right,"  says  the  Man  from  Kansas  who 
"knows"  Paris,  "I'll  get  a  guide  right  here,  and 
he'll  take  us  round  and  show  us  the  sights." 

"Can  you  get  him  heah?"  asks  the  gentle- 
man from  Georgia,  looking  round  at  the  glit- 
tering mirrors  and  gold  cornices  of  the  restau- 
rant. 

Can  you  get  a  guide?  Well,  now  I  Can 
you  keep  away  from  them?    All  day  from  the 

143 


Parisian  Pastimes 


dewy  hour  of  breakfast  till  late  at  night  they 
meet  you  in  the  street  and  sidle  up  with  the 
enquiry,  "Guide,  sir?" 

Where  the  Parisian  guide  comes  from  and 
how  he  graduates  for  his  job  I  do  not  know. 
He  is  not  French  and,  as  a  rule,  he  doesn't 
know  Paris.  He  knows  his  way  to  the  Louvre 
and  to  two  or  three  American  bars  and  to  the 
Moulin  Rouge  in  Montmartre.  But  he  doesn't 
need  to  know  his  way.  For  that  he  falls  back 
on  the  taxi-driver.  "Now,  sir,"  says  the 
guide  briskly  to  the  gentleman  who  has 
engaged  his  services,  "where  would  you  like 
to  go?"  "I  should  like  to  see  Napoleon's 
tomb."  "All  right,"  says  the  guide,  "get 
into  the  taxi."  Then  he  turns  to  the  driver. 
"Drive  to  Napoleon's  tomb,"  he  says.  After 
they  have  looked  at  it  the  guide  says,  "What 
would  you  like  to  see  next,  sir?"  "I  am 
very  anxious  to  see  Victor  Hugo's  house,  which 
I  understand  is  now  made  open  to  the  public." 
The  guide  turns  to  the  taxi  man.  "Drive  to 
Victor  Hugo's  house,"  he  says. 

After  looking  through  the  house  the  visitor 
144 


Parisian  PasUmes 


says  in  a  furtive  way,  "I  was  just  wondering 
If  I  could  get  a  drink  anywhere  in  this  part  of 
the  town?"  "Certainly,"  says  the  guide. 
"Drive  to  an  American  bar." 

Isn't  that  simple?  Can  you  Imagine  any 
more  agreeable  way  of  earning  five  dollars  in 
three  hours  than  that?  Of  course,  what  the 
guide  says  to  the  taxi  man  is  said  in  the  French 
language,  or  in  something  resembling  it,  and 
the  gentleman  in  the  cab  doesn't  understand  it. 
Otherwise,  after  six  or  seven  days  of  driving 
round  in  this  way  he  begins  to  wonder  what 
the  guide  is  for.  But  of  course,  the  guide's 
life,  when  you  come  to  think  of  it,  is  one  full 
of  difficulty  and  danger.  Just  suppose  that, 
while  he  was  away  off  somewhere  in  Victor 
Hugo's  house  or  at  Napoleon's  grave,  the  taxi- 
driver  were  to  be  struck  by  lightning.  How 
on  earth  would  he  get  home?  He  might, 
perhaps,  be  up  in  the  Eiffel  Tower  and  the 
taxi  man  get  a  stroke  of  paralysis,  and  then 
he'd  starve  to  death  trying  to  find  his  way 
back.  After  all,  the  guide  has  to  have  the 
kind  of  pluck  and  hardihood  that  ought  to  be 

I4S 


Parisian  Pastimes 


well  rewarded.  Why,  in  other  countries,  like 
Switzerland,  they  have  to  use  dogs  for  it,  and 
in  France,  when  these  plucky  fellows  throw 
themselves  into  it,  surely  one  wouldn't  grudge 
the  nominal  fee  of  five  dollars  for  which  they 
risk  their  lives. 

But  I  am  forgetting  about  the  Lady  from 
Georgia  and  her  husband.  Off  they  go  in  due 
course  from  the  glittering  doors  of  the  restau- 
rant in  a  huge  taxi  with  a  guide  in  a  peaked 
hat.  The  party  is  all  animation.  The  lady's 
face  is  aglow  with  moral  enthusiasm.  The 
gentleman  and  his  friend  have  their  coats  but- 
toned tight  to  their  chins  for  fear  that  thieves 
might  leap  over  the  side  of  the  taxi  and  steal 
their  neckties. 

So  they  go  buzzing  along  the  lighted 
boulevard  looking  for  "something  real  wicked." 
What  they  want  is  to  see  something  really  and 
truly  wicked;  they  don't  know  just  what, 
but  "something  bad."  They've  got  the  idea 
that  Paris  is  one  of  the  wickedest  places  on 
earth,  and  they  want  to  see  it. 

Strangely  enough,  in  their  own  home,  the 
146 


Tbe  lady's  face  is  aglow  with  moral  enthusiasm 


Parisian  Pastimes 


Lady  from  Georgia  is  one  of  the  leaders  of  the 
Social  Purity  movement,  and  her  husband, 
whose  skin  at  this  moment  is  stretched  as 
tight  as  a  football  with  French  brandy  and 
soda,  is  one  of  the  finest  speakers  on  the 
Georgia  temperance  platform,  with  a  reputa- 
tion that  reaches  from  Chattanooga  to  Chicka- 
mauga.  They  have  a  son  at  Yale  College  whom 
they  are  trying  to  keep  from  smoking  cigarettes. 
But  here  in  Paris,  so  they  reckon  it,  everything 
is  different.  It  doesn't  occur  to  them  that  per- 
haps it  is  wicked  to  pay  out  a  hundred  dollars 
In  an  evening  hiring  other  people  to  be  wicked. 
So  off  they  go  and  are  whirled  along  in  the 
brilliant  glare  of  the  boulevards  and  up  the 
gloomy,  narrow  streets  that  lead  to  Mont- 
martre.  They  visit  the  Moulin  Rouge  and 
the  Bal  Tabarin,  and  they  see  the  Oriental 
Dances  and  the  Cafe  of  Hell  and  the  hundred 
and  one  other  glittering  fakes  and  false 
appearances  that  poor  old  meretricious  Paris 
works  overtime  to  prepare  for  such  people  as 
themselves.  And  the  Lady  from  Georgia,  hav- 
ing seen  it  all,  thanks  Heaven  that  she  at  least 

147 


Parisian  Pastimes 


is  pure — which  is  a  beginning — and  they  go 
home  more  enthusiastic  than  ever  in  the  Social 
Purity  movement. 

But  the  fact  is  that  if  you  have  about 
twenty-five  thousand  new  visitors  pouring  into 
a  great  city  every  week  with  their  pockets  full 
of  money  and  clamoring  for  "something 
wicked,"  you've  got  to  do  the  best  you  can  for 
them. 

Hence  it  results  that  Paris — in  appear- 
ance, anyway — is  a  mighty  gay  place  at  night. 
The  sidewalks  are  crowded  with  the  little 
tables  of  the  coffee  and  liqueur  drinkers.  The 
music  of  a  hundred  orchestras  bursts  forth 
from  the  lighted  windows.  The  air  is  soft 
with  the  fragrance  of  a  June  evening,  tempered 
by  the  curling  smoke  of  fifty  thousand  cigars. 
Through  the  noise  and  chatter  of  the  crowd 
there  sounds  unending  the  wail  of  the  motor 
horn. 

The  hours  of  Parisian  gaiety  are  late. 
Ordinary  dinner  is  eaten  at  about  seven  o'clock, 
but  fashionable  dinners  begin  at  eight  or  eight 
thirty.     Theatres   open  at  a  quarter  to   nine 

148 


Parisian  Pastimes 


and  really  begin  at  nine  o'clock.  Special 
features  and  acts, — famous  singers  and  vaude- 
ville artists — are  brought  on  at  eleven  o'clock 
so  that  dinner-party  people  may  arrive  in  time 
to  see  them.  The  theatres  come  out  at  mid- 
night. After  that  there  are  the  night  suppers 
which  flourish  till  two  or  half  past.  But  if 
you  wish,  you  can  go  between  the  theater  and 
supper  to  some  such  side-long  place  as  the 
Moulin  Rouge  or  the  Bal  Tabarin,  which 
reach  the  height  of  their  supposed  merriment 
at  about  one  in  the  morning. 

At  about  two  or  two  thirty  the  motors 
come  whirling  home,  squawking  louder  than 
ever,  with  a  speed  limit  of  fifty  miles  an  hour. 
Only  the  best  of  them  can  run  faster  than 
that.  Quiet,  conservative  people  in  Paris  like 
to  get  to  bed  at  three  o'clock;  after  all,  what 
is  the  use  of  keeping  late  hours  and  ruining 
one's  health  and  complexion?  If  you  make  it 
a  strict  rule  to  be  in  bed  by  three,  you  feel  all 
the  better  for  it  in  the  long  run — health 
better,     nerves     steadier,     eyes     clearer — and 

149 


Parisian  Pastimes 


\ 


you're  able  to  get  up  early — at  half-past  eleven 
— and  feel  fine. 

Those  who  won't  or  don't  go  to  bed  at 
three  wander  about  the  town,  eat  a  second 
supper  In  an  all-night  restaurant,  circulate 
round  with  guides,  and  visit  the  slums  of  the 
Market,  where  gaunt-eyed  wretches  sleep  In 
crowded  alleys  in  the  mephitic  air  of  a  summer 
night,  and  where  the  Idle  rich  may  feed  their 
luxurious  curiosity  on  the  sufferings  of  the  idle 
poor. 

The  dinners,  the  theaters,  the  boulevards, 
and  the  rest  of  it  are  all  fun  enough,  at  any 
rate  for  one  visit  in  a  lifetime.  The  "real 
wicked"  part  of  it  Is  practically  fake — served 
up  for  the  curious  foreigner  with  money  to 
throw  away.  The  Moulin  Rouge  whirls  the 
wide  sails  of  its  huge  sign,  crimson  with 
electric  bulbs,  amid  the  false  glaze  of  the  Place 
Blanche.  Inside  of  it  there  is  more  red — the 
full  red  of  bad  claret  and  the  bright  red  of 
congested  faces  and  painted  cheeks.  Part  of 
the  place  is  a  theater  with  a  vaudeville  show 
much  like  any  other.     Another  part  is  a  vast 


Parisian  Pastimes 


"promenoir"  where  you  may  walk  up  and 
down  or  sit  at  a  little  table  and  drink  bad 
brandy  at  one  franc  and  a  half.  In  a  fenced 
off  part  are  the  Oriental  Dances,  a  familiar 
feature  of  every  Parisian  Show.  These  dances 
— at  twenty  cents  a  turn — are  supposed  to 
represent  all  the  languishing  allurement  of 
the  Oriental  houri — I  think  that  is  the  word. 
The  dancers  in  Paris — it  is  only  fair  to  state — 
have  never  been  nearer  to  the  Orient  than  the 
Faubourg  St.  Antoine,  where  they  were 
brought  up  and  where  they  learned  all  the 
Orientalism  that  they  know.  Their  "dance" 
is  performed  with  their  feet  continuously  on 
the  ground — never  lifted,  I  mean — and  is  done 
by  gyrations  of  the  stomach,  beside  which  the 
paroxysms  of  an  overdose  of  Paris  green  are 
child's  play.  In  seeing  these  dances  one 
realizes  all  the  horrors  of  life  in  the  East. 

Not  everyone,  however,  can  be  an  Oriental 
dancer  in  a  French  pleasure  show.  To  qualify 
you  must  be  as  scrawny  as  a  Parisian  cab- 
horse,  and  it  appears  as  if  few  debutantes 
could  break  into  the  profession  under  the  age 

151 


Parisian  Pastimes 


of  forty.  The  dances  go  on  at  intervals  till 
two  in  the  morning,  after  which  the  Oriental 
houri  crawls  to  her  home  at  the  same  time 
as  the  Parisian  cab-horse — her  companion  in 
arms. 

Under  the  Moulin  Rouge,  and  in  all  similar 
places,  is  a  huge  dance  hall:  It  has  a  "Hun- 
garian Orchestra" — a  fact  which  is  proved  by 
the  red  and  green  jackets,  the  tyrolese  caps, 
and  by  the  printed  sign  which  says,  "This  is 
a  Hungarian  Orchestra."  I  knew  that  they 
were  Hungarians  the  night  I  saw  them,  be- 
cause I  distinctly  heard  one  of  them  say, 
"what  t'ell  do  we  play  next  boys?"  The 
reference  to  William  Tell  was  obvious.  After 
every  four  tunes  the  Orchestra  are  given  a  tall 
stein  of  beer,  and  they  all  stand  up  and  drink 
It,  shouting  "Hochl"  or  "Hal"  or  "Hoo!" 
or  something  of  the  sort.  This  is  supposed 
to  give  a  high  touch  of  local  colour.  Every- 
body knows  how  Hungarians  always  shout  out 
loud  when  they  see  a  glass  of  beer.  I've  no- 
ticed it  again  and  again  in  sugar  refineries. 

The    Hungarians   have   to    drink   the   beer 

152 


Parisian  Pastimes 


whether  they  like  It  or  not — It's  part  of  their 
contract.  I  noticed  one  poor  fellow  who  was 
playing  the  long  bassoon,  and  who  was  doing 
a  double  night-shift  overtime.  He'd  had 
twenty-four  pints  of  beer  already,  and  there 
were  still  two  hours  before  closing  time.  You 
could  tell  what  he  was  feeling  like  by  the  sob- 
bing of  his  Instrument.  But  he  stood  up  every 
now  and  then  and  yelled  "Hoch!"  or  "Hic- 
cough I" — or  whatever  it  was — along  with  the 
others. 

On  the  big  floor  in  front  of  the  Hungarians 
the  dance  goes  on.  Most  of  the  time  the 
dances  are  endless  waltzes  and  polkas  shared 
in  by  the  nondescript  frequenters  of  the  place, 
while  the  tourist  visitors  sit  behind  a  railing 
and  watch.  To  look  at,  the  dancing  is  about 
as  interesting,  nothing  more  or  less,  than  the 
round  dances  at  a  Canadian  picnic  on  the  first 
of  July, 

Every  now  and  then,  to  liven  things  up, 
comes  the  can-can.  In  theory  this  is  a  wild 
dance,  breaking  out  from  sheer  ebullience 
of  spirit,  and  shared  in  by  a  bevy  of  merry 

153 


Parisian  Pastimes 


girls  carried  away  by  gaiety  and  joy  of  living. 
In  reality  the  can-can  is  performed  by  eight  or 
ten  old  nags, — ex-Oriental  dancers,  I  should 
think, — at  eighty  cents  a  night.  But  they  are 
deserving  women,  and  work  hard — like  all  the 
rest  of  the  brigade  in  the  factory  of  Parisian 
gaiety. 

After  the  Moulin  Rouge  or  the  Bal  Tabarin 
or  such,  comes,  of  course,  a  visit  to  one  of  the 
night  cafes  of  the  Montmartre  district.  Their 
names  in  themselves  are  supposed  to  indicate 
their  weird  and  alluring  character — the  Cafe  of 
Heaven,  the  Cafe  of  Nothingness,  and, — how 
dreadful — the  Cafe  of  Hell.  "Montmartre," 
says  one  of  the  latest  English  writers  on  Paris, 
"is  the  scene  of  all  that  is  wild,  mad,  and 
extravagant.  Nothing  is  too  grotesque,  too 
terrible,  too  eccentric  for  the  Montmartre 
mind."  Fiddlesticks  I  What  he  means  is 
that  nothing  is  too  damn  silly  for  people  to 
pay  to  go  to  see. 

Take,  for  example,  the  notorious  Cafe  of 
Hell.  The  portals  are  low  and  gloomy.  You 
enter  in  the  dark.     A  pass-word  is  given — 

IS4 


Parisian  Pastimes 


"Stranger,  who  cometh  here?" — "More  food 
for  worms."  You  sit  and  eat  among  coffins 
and  shrouds.  There  are  muffled  figures 
shuffling  around  to  represent  monks  in  cowls, 
saints,  demons,  and  apostles.  The  "Angel 
Gabriel"  watches  at  the  door.  "Father 
Time"  moves  among  the  eaters.  The  waiters 
are  dressed  as  undertakers.  There  are  skulls 
and  cross-bones  in  the  walls.  The  light  is 
that  of  dim  tapers.     And  so  on. 

And  yet  I  suppose  some  of  the  foreign 
visitors  to  the  Cafe  of  Hell  think  that  this  is 
a  truly  French  home  scene,  and  discuss  the 
queer  characteristics  of  the  French  people 
suggested  by  it. 

I  got  to  know  a  family  in  Paris  that  worked 
In  one  of  these  Montmartre  night  cafes — 
quiet,  decent  people  they  were,  with  a  little 
home  of  their  own  in  the  suburbs.  The 
father  worked  as  Beelzebub  mostly,  but  he 
could  double  with  St.  Anthony  and  do  a  very 
fair  St.  Luke  when  it  was  called  for.  The 
mother  worked  as  Mary  Magdalene,  but  had 
^rown  so  stout  that  it  was  hard  for  her  to 

155 


Parisian  Pastimes 


hold  it.  There  were  two  boys,  one  of  whom 
was  working  as  John  the  Baptist,  but  had  been 
promised  to  be  promoted  to  Judas  Iscariot  in 
the  fall;  they  were  good  people,  and  worked 
well,  but  were  tired  of  their  present  place. 
Like  everyone  else  they  had  heard  of  Canada 
and  thought  of  coming  out.  They  were  very 
anxious  to  know  what  openings  there  were  In 
their  line;  whether  there  would  be  any  call 
for  a  Judas  Iscariot  in  a  Canadian  restaurant, 
or  whether  a  man  would  have  any  chance  as 
St.  Anthony  in  the  West. 

I  told  them  frankly  that  these  jobs  were 
pretty  well  filled  up. 

Listen!  It  is  striking  three.  The  motors 
are  whirling  down  the  asphalt  street.  The 
brilliant  lights  of  the  boulevard  windows  are 
fading  out.  Here,  as  in  the  silent  woods  of 
Canada,  night  comes  at  last.  The  restless  city 
of  pleasure  settles  to  its  short  sleep. 


1S5 


THE    RETROJCriFE  EXIS- 
TENCE OF  MR.  JUGGINS 


The  Retroactive  Existence  of  Mr. 
Juggins 

I  FIRST  met  Jug^!ns. — really  to  notice 
him, — years  and  years  's.go  as  a  boy  out 
camping.  Somebody  was  trying  to  nail 
up  a  board  on  a  tree  for  a  shelf  and 
Juggins  interfered  to  help  him. 

"Stop  a  minute,"  he  said,  "you  need  to 
saw  the  end  of  that  board  off  before  you  put  it 
up."  Then  Juggins  looked  round  for  a  saw, 
and  when  he  got  it  he  had  hardly  made  more 
than  a  stroke  or  two  with  it  before  he  stopped. 
"This  saw,"  he  said,  "needs  to  be  filed  up  a 
bit."  So  he  went  and  hunted  up  a  file  to 
sharpen  the  saw,  but  found  that  before  he 
could  use  the  file  he  needed  to  put  a  proper 
handle  on  it,  and  to  make  a  handle  he  went  to 
look  for  a  sapling  in  the  bush,  but  to  cut  the 
sapling  he  found  that  he  needed  to  sharpen  up 
the  axe.    To  do  this,  of  course,  he  had  to  fijc 

159 


Retroactive  Existence  of  Mr.  Juggins 

the  grindstone  so  as  to  make  it  run  properly. 
This  involved  making  wooden  legs  for  the 
grindstone.  To  do  this  decently  Juggins 
decided  to  make  a  carpenter's  bench.  This 
was  quite  impossible  without  a  better  set  of 
tools.  Juggins  went  to  the  village  to  get  the 
tools  required,  and,  of  course,  he  never  came 
back. 

He  was  re-discovered — weeks  later — in  the 
city,  getting  prices  on  wholesale  tool  machinery. 

After  that  first  episode  I  got  to  know 
Juggins  very  well.  For  some  time  we  were 
students  at  college  together.  But  Juggins 
somehow  never  got  far  with  his  studies.  He 
always  began  with  great  enthusiasm  and  then 
something  happened.  For  a  time  he  studied 
French  with  tremendous  eagerness.  But  he 
soon  found  that  for  a  real  knowledge  of 
French  you  need  first  to  get  a  thorough  grasp 
of  Old  French  and  Provencal.  But  it  proved 
impossible  to  do  anything  with  these  without 
an  absolutely  complete  command  of  Latin. 
This  Juggins  discovered  could  only  be  obtained, 

i6o 


Retroactive  Existence  of  Mr.  Juggins 

In  any  thorough  way,  through  Sanskrit,  which 
of  course  lies  at  the  base  of  It.  So  Juggins 
devoted  himself  to  Sanskrit  until  he  realised 
that  for  a  proper  understanding  of  Sanskrit 
one  needs  to  study  the  ancient  Iranian,  the 
root-language  underneath.  This  language  how- 
ever is  lost. 

So  Juggins  had  to  begin  over  again.  He 
did,  it  Is  true,  make  some  progress  In  natural 
science.  He  studied  physics  and  rushed  rapidly 
backwards  from  forces  to  molecules,  and  from 
molecules  to  atoms,  and  from  atoms  to  elec- 
trons, and  then  his  whole  studies  exploded 
backward  Into  the  infinities  of  space,  still 
searching  a  first  cause. 

Juggins,  of  course,  never  took  a  degree,  so 
he  made  no  practical  use  of  his  education. 
But  it  didn't  matter.  He  was  very  well  off 
and  was  able  to  go  straight  into  business  with 
a  capital  of  about  a  hundred  thousand  dollars. 
He  put  It  at  first  into  a  gas  plant,  but  found 
that  he  lost  money  at  that  because  of  the  high 
price   of   the   coal  needed  to   make  gas.      So 

i6i 


Ii  rtriyactiv^  E.rutmcr  of  Mr.  Ju^^nt 

h:  j^olJ  out  for  ninety  thousand  dollars  and 
went  into  coal  mining.  This  was  unsKCcssjFul 
because  of  the  awful  cost  of  mining  machinery. 
So  Ji^ggitts  scdd  his  share  in  the  mine  for 
dglity  thousand  dollars  and  went  in  for 
manufacturing  mining  machinery.  At  this  he 
would  have  undoiditedlf  made  money  but  for 
the  enormous  cost  of  gas  needed  as  modve- 
r  r  the  plant.    Jt;^gins  sold  out  of  the 

-     for  seventy  thousand,  and  after 
:::  ^v  _•  _,  :^  ^  cirdc  like  skating 

: : :  s  _         ;   dificrcnt  branches  of 


V-.' 


He    ..5:   1    certain  amount  of  ir.v-ev   eich 
jtiT.  t>-:z:  i]h  in  good  years  when  tr^ie  wis 
I-  dull  times  when  ev^erything  was  un- 
:   -  i  i  -I  r^v  welL 
^  ~>    ^   -:>!.:  life  was  rery  qmet. 
:    _:«:      :  never  marr.ei.     He  did.  it  is 
;1.  !«  love  ^veral  r.~  :?     :_:  rich  time 
;^   ~   :;    :   ::    _  :       *    :   ~       :    :  -rell  his 
:    :    5::r     :::   1   ~25  very  mz.~izt  "svidi 


Retrrjoctive  Exvdence  of  Mr,  Juggin* 

It  was  literally  love  at  first  sight.  There  was 
no  doubt  of  his  tnitadosn.  As  soon  as  be  had 
met  her  he  was  quite  frank  about  tL  **l  in- 
tend," he  said,  "to  ask  her  to  be  my  wife." 

**Whenr  I  asked;  "right  awayr 

"No,"  he  said,  "I  want  first  to  fit  myieli 
to  be  worthy  of  her.** 

So  he  went  into  moral  training  to  fit  him- 
self. He  taught  in  a  Sunday  school  for  ux 
weeks,  till  he  realised  that  a  man  has  no  busi- 
ness in  Divine  work  of  that  sort  without  first 
preparing  himself  by  serious  study  of  the 
history  of  Palestine.  And  he  felt  that  a  man 
was  a  cad  to  force  his  society  on  a  pA  while 
he  is  still  only  half  acquainted  with  the  history 
of  the  Israelites.  So  Juggins  stayed  away.  It 
was  nearly  two  years  before  he  was  fit  to  pro- 
pose. By  the  time  he  was  fit,  the  girl  had 
already  married  a  brainless  thing  in  patent 
leather  boots  who  £dn't  even  know  who 
Moses  was. 

Of  course  Juggins  fell  in  love  again.  Feaphi 
alwavs  do.     And  at  arrr  r^te  by  this  time  he 


Retroactive  Existence  of  Mr.  Juggins 

was  in  a  state  of  moral  fitness  that  made  it 
imperative. 

So  he  fell  in  love — deeply  in  love  this  time — 
with  a  charming  girl,  commonly  known  as  the 
eldest  Miss  Thorneycroft.  She  was  only  called 
eldest  because  she  had  five  younger  sisters;  and 
she  was  very  poor  and  awfully  clever  and 
trimmed  all  her  own  hats.  Any  man,  if  he's 
worth  the  name,  falls  in  love  with  that  sort 
of  thing  at  first  sight.  So,  of  course.  Juggins 
would  have  proposed  to  her;  only  when  he 
went  to  the  house  he  met  her  next  sister:  and  of 
course  she  was  younger  still;  and,  I  suppose, 
poorer:  and  made  not  only  her  own  hats  but 
her  own  blouses.  So  Juggins  fell  in  love  with 
her.  But  one  night  when  he  went  to  call,  the 
door  was  opened  by  the  sister  younger  still, 
who  not  only  made  her  own  blouses  and 
trimmed  her  own  hats,  but  even  made  her  own 
tailor-made  suits.  After  that  Juggins  backed 
up  from  sister  to  sister  till  he  went  through 
the  whole  family,  and  in  the  end  got  none  of 
them. 

Perhaps  it  was  just  as  well  that  Juggins 
164 


Retroactive  Existence  of  Mr,  Juggins 

never  married.  It  would  have  made  things 
very  difficult  because,  of  course,  he  got  poorer 
all  the  time.  You  see  after  he  sold  out  his 
last  share  in  his  last  business  he  bought  with 
it  a  diminishing  life  annuity,  so  planned  that 
he  always  got  rather  less  next  year  than  this 
year,  and  still  less  the  year  after.  Thus,  if  he 
lived  long  enough,  he  would  starve  to  death. 

Meantime  he  has  become  a  quaint-looking 
elderly  man,  with  coats  a  little  too  short  and 
trousers  a  little  above  his  boots — like  a  boy. 
His  face  too  is  like  that  of  a  boy,  with  wrinkles. 

And  his  talk  now  has  grown  to  be  always 
reminiscent.  He  is  perpetually  telling  long 
stories  of  amusing  times  that  he  has  had  with 
different  people  that  he  names. 

He  says  for  example — 

"I  remember  a  rather  queer  thing  that 
happened  to  me  in  a  train  one  day " 

And  if  you  say — "When  was  that  Juggins?" 
— he  looks  at  you  in  a  vague  way  as  if  cal- 
culating and  says, — "in  1875,  ^^  1876,  I 
think,  as  near  as  I  recall  it — " 

I  notice,  too,  that  his  reminiscences  are 
165 


Retroactive  Eccistence  of  Mr.  Juggins 

going  further  and  further  back.  He  used  to 
base  his  stories  on  his  recollections  as  a  young 
man,  now  they  are  further  back. 

The  other  day  he  told  me  a  story  about 
himself  and  two  people  that  he  called  the 
Harper  brothers, — Ned  and  Joe.  Ned,  he 
said  was  a  tremendously  powerful  fellow. 

I  asked  how  old  Ned  was  and  Juggins  said 
that  he  was  three.  He  added  that  there  was 
another  brother  not  so  old,  but  a  very  clever 
fellow  about, — here  Juggins  paused  and  cal- 
culated— about  eighteen  months. 

So  then  I  realised  where  Juggins  retroactive 
existence  is  carrying  him  to.  He  has  passed 
back  through  childhood  into  infancy,  and  pres- 
ently, just  as  his  annuity  runs  to  a  point  and 
vanishes,  he  will  back  up  clear  through  the 
Curtain  of  Existence  and  die, — or  be  born,  I 
don't  know  which  to  call  it. 

Meantime  he  remains  to  me  as  one  of  the 
most  illuminating  allegories  I  have  met. 


166 


Meanwhile  he  had  become  a  quaint-looking  elderly  man. 


MAKING   A   MAGAZINE 
{The  Dream  of  a  Contributor) 


Making  a  Magazine 


I  DREAMT  one  night  not  long  ago  that  I 
was  the  editor  of  a  great  illustrated  mag- 
azine. I  offer  no  apology  for  this:  I 
have  often  dreamt  even  worse  of  myself 
than  that. 

In  any  case  I  didn't  do  it  on  purpose:  very 
often,  I  admit,  I  try  to  dream  that  I  am  Presi- 
dent Wilson,  or  Mr.  Bryan,  or  the  Ritz- 
Carlton  Hotel,  or  a  share  of  stock  in  the 
Standard  Oil  Co.  for  the  sheer  luxury  and 
cheapness  of  it.  But  this  was  an  accident.  I 
had  been  sitting  up  late  at  night  writing  per- 
sonal reminiscences  of  Abraham  Lincoln.  I 
was  writing  against  time.  The  presidential 
election  was  drawing  nearer  every  day  and  the 
market  for  reminiscences  of  Lincoln  was  ex- 
tremely brisk,  but,  of  course,  might  collapse 
any  moment.  Writers  of  my  class  have  to 
consider  this  sort  of  thing.  For  instance,  in 
the  middle  of  Lent,  I  find  that  I  can  do  fairly 

169 


Making  a  Magazine. 


well  with  "Recent  Lights  on  the  Scriptures." 
Then,  of  course,  when  the  hot  weather  comes, 
the  market  for  Christmas  poetry  opens  and 
there's  a  fairly  good  demand  for  voyages  in 
the  Polar  Seas.  Later  on,  in  the  quiet  of  the 
autumn  I  generally  write  some  "Unpublished 
Letters  from  Goethe  to  Balzac,"  and  that  sort 
of  thing. 

But  it's  a  wearing  occupation,  full  of  dis- 
appointments, and  needing  the  very  keenest 
business  instinct  to  watch  every  turn  of  the 
market. 

I  am  afraid  that  this  is  a  digression.  I  only 
wanted  to  explain  how  a  man's  mind  could  be 
so  harassed  and  overwrought  as  to  make  him 
dream  that  he  was  an  editor. 

I  knew  at  once  in  my  dream  where  and 
what  I  was.  As  soon  as  I  saw  the  luxury  of 
the  surroundings, — the  spacious  room  with  its 
vaulted  ceiling,  lit  with  stained  glass, — the 
beautiful  mahogany  table  at  which  I  sat  writing 
with  a  ten-dollar  fountain  pen,  the  gift  of  the 
manufacturers, — on  embossed  stationery,  the 
gift  of  the  embossers, — on  which  I  was  setting 

170 


Making  a  Magazine. 


down  words  at  eight  and  a  half  cents  a  word 
and  deliberately  picking  out  short  ones  through 
sheer  business  acuteness; — as  soon  as  I  saw; — 
this  I  said  to  myself — 

"I  am  an  editor,  and  this  Is  my  editorial 
sanctum."  Not  that  I  have  ever  seen  an 
editor  or  a  sanctum.  But  I  have  sent  so 
many  manuscripts  to  so  many  editors  and 
received  them  back  with  such  unfailing  prompt- 
ness, that  the  scene  before  me  was  as  familiar 
to  my  eye  as  if  I  had  been  wide  awake. 

As  I  thus  mused,  revelling  in  the  charm 
of  my  surroundings  and  admiring  the  luxu- 
rious black  alpaca  coat  and  the  dainty  dickie 
which  I  wore,  there  was  a  knock  at  the  door. 

A  beautiful  creature  entered.  She  evidently 
belonged  to  the  premises,  for  she  wore  no  hat 
and  there  were  white  cuffs  upon  her  wrists. 
She  has  that  indescribable  beauty  of  effective- 
ness such  as  is  given  to  hospital  nurses. 

This,  I  thought  to  myself,  must  be  my 
private  secretary. 

"I  hope  I  don't  interrupt  you,  sir,"  said  the 
girl. 


Making  a  Magazine. 


"My  dear  child,"  I  answered,  speaking  in 
that  fatherly  way  in  which  an  editor  might 
well  address  a  girl  almost  young  enough  to  be 
his  wife,  "pray  do  not  mention  it.  Sit  down. 
You  must  be  fatigued  after  your  labours  of  the 
morning.     Let  me  ring  for  a  club  sandwich." 

"I  came  to  say,  sir,"  the  secretary  went  on, 
"that  there's  a  person  downstairs  waiting  to 
see  you." 

My  manner  changed  at  once. 

"Is  he  a  gentleman  or  a  contributor?"  I 
asked. 

"He  doesn't  look  exactly  like  a  gentleman." 

"Very  good,"  I  said.  "He's  a  contributor 
for  sure.  Tell  him  to  wait.  Ask  the  caretaker 
to  lock  him  in  the  coal  cellar,  and  kindly  slip 
out  and  see  if  there's  a  policeman  on  the  beat 
in  case  I  need  him." 

"Very  good,  sir,"  said  the  secretary. 

I  waited  for  about  an  hour,  wrote  a  few 
editorials  advocating  the  rights  of  the  people, 
smoked  some  Turkish  cigarettes,  drank  a  glass 
of  sherry,  and  ate  part  of  an  anchovy  sandwich. 

172 


Making  a  Magazine, 


Then  I  rang  the  bell.  "Bring  that  man  here,'* 
I  said. 

Presently  they  brought  him  in.  He  was  a 
timid-looking  man  with  an  embarrassed  manner 
and  all  the  low  cunning  of  an  author  stamped 
on  his  features.  I  could  see  a  bundle  of 
papers  in  his  hand,  and  I  knew  that  the 
scoundrel  was  carrying  a  manuscript, 

"Now,  sir,"  I  said,  "speak  quickly.  What's 
your  business?" 

"I've  got  here  a  manuscript,"  he  began. 

"What!"  I  shouted  at  him.  "A  manuscript  I 
You'd  dare,  would  you !  Bringing  manuscripts 
in  here!  What  sort  of  a  place  do  you  think 
this  is?" 

"It's  the  manuscript  of  a  story,"  he  faltered. 

"A  story!"  I  shrieked.  "What  on  earth 
do  you  think  we'd  want  stories  for!  Do  you 
think  we've  nothing  better  to  do  than  to  print 
your  idiotic  ravings.  Have  you  any  idea,  you 
idiot,  of  the  expense  we're  put  to  in  setting  up 
our  fifty  pages  of  illustrated  advertising? 
Look  here,"  I  continued,  seizing  a  bundle  of 
proof  illustrations   that   lay  in   front   of  me, 

173 


Making  a  Magazine 


"do  you  see  this  charming  picture  of  an 
Asbestos  Cooker,  guaranteed  fireless,  odour- 
less, and  purposeless  I  Do  you  see  this  patent 
motor-car  with  pneumatic  cushions,  and  the 
full-page  description  of  its  properties?  Can 
you  form  any  idea  of  the  time  and  thought  that 
we  have  to  spend  on  these  things,  and  yet  you 
dare  to  come  in  here  with  your  miserable 
stories.  By  heaven,"  I  said,  rising  in  my  seat, 
"I've  a  notion  to  come  over  there  and  choke 
you:  I'm  entitled  to  do  it  by  the  law,  and  I 
think  I  will." 

"Don't,  don't,"  he  pleaded.  "I'll  go  away. 
I  meant  no  harm.     I'll  take  it  with  me." 

"No  you  don't,"  I  interrupted;  "none  of 
your  sharp  tricks  with  this  magazine.  You've 
submitted  this  manuscript  to  me,  and  it  stays 
submitted.  If  I  don't  like  it,  I  shall  prosecute 
you,  and,  I  trust,  obtain  full  reparation  from 
the  courts." 

To  tell  the  truth,  it  had  occurred  to  me 
that  perhaps  I  might  need  after  all  to  buy  the 
miserable  stuff.  Even  while  I  felt  that  my 
indignation  at  the  low  knavery  of  the  fellow 

174 


With  all  the  low  cunning  of  an  author  stam{)ed  on  his  features. 


Making  a  Magazine 


was  justified,  I  knew  that  it  might  be  neces- 
sary to  control  it.  The  present  low  state  of 
public  taste  demands  a  certain  amount  of  this 
kind  of  matter  distributed  among  the  adver- 
tising. 

I  rang  the  bell  again. 

"Please  take  this  man  away  and  shut  him 
up  again.  Have  them  keep  a  good  eye  on 
him.    He's  an  author." 

"Very  good,  sir,"  said  the  secretary. 

I  called  her  back  for  one  moment. 

"Don't  feed  him  anything,"  I  said. 

"No,"  said  the  girl. 

The  manuscript  lay  before  me  on  the  table. 
It  looked  bulky.  It  bore  the  title  Dorothy 
Dacres,  or,  Only  a  Clergyman's  Daughter. 

I  rang  the  bell  again. 

"Kindly  ask  the  janitor  to  step  this  way." 

He  came  in.  I  could  see  from  the  straight, 
honest  look  in  his  features  that  he  was  a  man 
to  be  relied  upon. 

"Jones,"  I  said,  "can  you  read?" 

"Yes,  sir,"  he  said,  "some." 

"Very  good.  I  want  you  to  take  this  manu- 
175 


Making  a  Magazine 


script  and  read  it.  Read  it  all  through  and 
then  bring  it  back  here." 

The  janitor  took  the  manuscript  and  dis- 
appeared. I  turned  to  my  desk  again  and  was 
soon  absorbed  in  arranging  a  full-page  display 
of  plumbers'  furnishings  for  the  advertising. 
It  had  occurred  to  me  that  by  arranging  the 
picture  matter  in  a  neat  device  with  verses 
from  "Home  Sweet  Home"  running  through 
it  in  double-leaded  old  English  type,  I  could 
set  up  a  page  that  would  be  the  delight  of  all 
business  readers  and  make  this  number  of  the 
magazine  a  conspicuous  success.  My  mind  was 
so  absorbed  that  I  scarcely  noticed  that  over 
an  hour  elapsed  before  the  janitor  returned. 

"Well,  Jones,"  I  said  as  he  entered,  "have 
you  read  that  manuscript?" 

"Yes,  sir." 

"And  you  find  it  all  right — punctuation 
good,  spelling  all  correct?" 

"Very  good  indeed,  sir." 

"And  there  is,  I  trust,  nothing  of  what  one 
would  call  a  humorous  nature  in  it?  I  want 
you  to  answer  me  quite  frankly,  Jones, — there 

176 


Making  a  Magazine 


is  nothing  in  it  that  would  raise  a  smile,  or 
even  a  laugh,  is  there?" 

"Oh,  no,  sir,"  said  Jones,  "nothing  at  all." 

"And  now  tell  me — for  remember  that  the 
reputation  of  our  magazine  is  at  stake — does 
this  story  make  a  decided  impression  on  you? 
Has  it,"  and  here  I  cast  my  eye  casually  at 
the  latest  announcement  of  a  rival  publication, 
"the  kind  of  tour  de  force  which  at  once  excites 
you  to  the  full  qui  vive  and  which  contains  a 
sustained  brio  that  palpitates  on  every  page? 
Answer  carefully,  Jones,  because  if  it  hasn't,  I 
won't  buy  it." 

"I  think  it  has,"  he  said. 

"Very  well,"  I  answered;  "now  bring  the 
author  to  me." 

In  the  interval  of  waiting,  I  hastily  ran  my 
eye  through  the  pages  of  the  manuscript. 

Presently  they  brought  the  author  back 
again.     He  had  assumed  a  look  of  depression. 

"I  have  decided,"  I  said,  "to  take  your  manu- 
script." 

Joy  broke  upon  his  face.  He  came  nearer 
to  me  as  if  to  lick  my  hand. 

177 


Making  a  Magazine 


"Stop  a  minute,"  I  said.  "I  am  willing  to 
take  your  story,  but  there  are  certain  things, 
certain  small  details  which  I  want  to  change." 

"Yes?"  he  said  timidly. 

"In  the  first  place,  I  don't  like  your  title. 
Dorothy  D  acres,  or,  Only  a  Clergyman^  s 
Daughter  is  too  quiet.  I  shall  change  it  to  read 
Dorothea  Dashaway,  or,  The  Quicksands  of 
Society." 

"But  surely,"  began  the  contributor,  begin- 
ning to  wring  his  hands 

"Don't  interrupt  me,"  I  said.  "In  the  next 
place,  the  story  is  much  too  long."  Here  I 
reached  for  a  large  pair  of  tailor's  scissors 
that  lay  on  the  table.  "This  story  contains 
nine  thousand  words.  We  never  care  to  use 
more  than  six  thousand.  I  must  therefore  cut 
some  of  it  off."  I  measured  the  story  carefully 
with  a  pocket  tape  that  lay  in  front  of  me, 
cut  off  three  thousand  words  and  handed  them 
back  to  the  author.  "These  words,"  I  said, 
"you  may  keep.  We  make  no  claim  on  them 
at  all.  You  are  at  liberty  to  make  any  use  of 
them  that  you  like." 

178 


Making  a  Magazine 


"But  please,"  he  said,  "you  have  cut  off  all 
the  end  of  the  story:  the  whole  conclusion  Is 
gone.     The  readers  can't  possibly  tell, " 

I  smiled  at  him  with  something  approaching 
kindness. 

"My  dear  sir,"  I  said,  "they  never  get  be- 
yond three  thousand  words  of  the  end  of  a 
magazine  story.  The  end  is  of  no  consequence 
whatever.  The  beginning,  I  admit,  may  be, 
but  the  endl  Come  I  Come!  And  in  any 
case  in  our  magazine  we  print  the  end  of  each 
story  separately,  distributed  among  the  adver- 
tisements to  break  the  type.  But  just  at  present 
we  have  plenty  of  these  on  hand.  You  see," 
I  continued,  for  there  was  something  in  the 
man's  manner  that  almost  touched  me,  "all 
that  is  needed  is  that  the  last  words  printed 
must  have  a  look  of  finality.  That's  all.  Now, 
let  me  see,"  and  I  turned  to  the  place  where 
the  story  was  cut,  "what  are  the  last  words: 
here:  'Dorothea  sank  into  a  chair.  There  we 
must  leave  her  I'  Excellent!  What  better  end 
could  you  want?  She  sank  into  a  chair  and  you 
leave  her.     Nothing  more  natural." 

179 


Making  a  Magazine 


The  contributor  seemed  about  to  protest. 
But  I  stopped  him. 

"There  is  one  other  small  thing,"  I  said. 
"Our  coming  number  is  to  be  a  Plumbers'  and 
Motor  Number.  I  must  ask  you  to  introduce 
a  certain  amount  of  plumbing  into  your  story." 
I  rapidly  turned  over  the  pages,  "I  see,"  I 
said,  "that  your  story  as  written  is  laid  largely 
in  Spain  in  the  summer.  I  shall  ask  you  to 
alter  this  to  Switzerland  and  make  it  winter 
time  to  allow  for  the  breaking  of  steam-pipes. 
Such  things  as  these,  however,  are  mere  details; 
we  can  easily  arrange  them." 

I  reached  out  my  hand. 

"And  now,"  I  said,  "I  must  wish  you  a 
good  afternoon." 

The  contributor  seemed  to  pluck  up  courage. 

"What  about  remuneration" — he  faltered. 

I  waived  the  question  gravely  aside.  "You 
will,  of  course,  be  duly  paid  at  our  usual  rate. 
You  receive  a  cheque  two  years  after  publica- 
tion. It  will  cover  all  your  necessary  expenses, 
including  ink,  paper,  string,  sealing-wax  and 
other  incidentals,  in  addition  to  which  we  hope 

i8o 


Making  a  Magazine 


to  be  able  to  make  you  a  compensation  for 
your  time  on  a  reasonable  basis  per  hour. 
Good-bye." 

He  left,  and  I  could  hear  them  throwing  him 
downstairs. 

Then  I  sat  down,  while  my  mind  was  on  it, 
and  wrote  the  advance  notice  of  the  story.  It 
ran  like  this: 

NEXT     month's     number     OF     THE     MEGALO- 
MANIA   MAGAZINE   WILL    CONTAIN   A 
THRILLING     STORY,     ENTITLED 

"DOROTHEA  DASH  A  WAY,  OR,  THE 
QUICKSANDS  OF  SOCIETY." 

The  author  has  lately  leaped  into  immediate 
recognition  as  the  greatest  master  of  the  short 
story  in  the  American  World.  His  style  has 
a  brio,  a  poise,  a  savoir  faire,  a  je  ne  sais  quoi, 
which  stamps  all  his  work  with  the  cachet  of 
literary  superiority.  The  sum  paid  for  the 
story  of  Dorothea  Dashaway  is  said  to  be  the 
largest  ever  paid  for  a  single  MS.  Every 
page  palpitates  with  interest,  and  at  the  con- 

i8i 


Making  a  Magazine 


elusion  of  this  remarkable  narrative  the  reader 
lays  down  the  page  in  utter  bewilderment,  to 
turn  perhaps  to  the  almost  equally  marvellous 
illustration  of  Messrs.  Spiggott  and  Fawcett's 
Home  Plumbing  Device  Exposition  which 
adorns  the  same  number  of  the  great  review. 

I  wrote  this  out,  rang  the  bell,  and  was  just 
beginning  to  say  to  the  secretary — 

"My  dear  child, — pray  pardon  my  forget- 
fulness.  You  must  be  famished  for  lunch. 
Will  you  permit  me " 

And  then  I  woke  up — at  the  wrong  minute, 
as  one  always  does. 


182 


HOMER  AND  HUMBUG 
AN  ACADEMIC   DISCUSSION 


Homer  and  Humbug,  an  Academic  Dis- 
cussion 

THE   follwing  discussion  is  of  course 
only  of  Interest  to  scholars.     But,  as 
the  public  schools  returns  show  that 
In  the  United  States  there  are  now 
over  a  million  coloured  scholars  alone,  the  ap- 
peal Is  wide  enough. 

I  do  not  mind  confessing  that  for  a  long 
time  past  I  have  been  very  sceptical  about  the 
classics.  I  was  myself  trained  as  a  classical 
scholar.  It  seemed  the  only  thing  to  do  with 
me.  I  acquired  such  a  singular  facility  in 
handling  Latin  and  Greek  that  I  could  take  a 
page  of  either  of  them,  distinguish  which  it 
was  by  merely  glancing  at  it,  and,  with  the 
help  of  a  dictionary  and  a  pair  of  compasses, 
whip  off  a  translation  of  it  in  less  than  three 
hours. 

But  I  never  got  any  pleasure  from  it.  I  lied 
about  it.  At  first,  perhaps,  I  lied  through  vanity. 
Any  coloured  scholar  will  understand  the  feel- 

185 


Homer  and  Humbug 


ing.  Later  on  I  lied  through  habit;  later  still 
because,  after  all,  the  classics  were  all  that  I 
had  and  so  I  valued  them.  I  have  seen  thus  a 
deceived  dog  value  a  pup  with  a  broken  leg, 
and  a  pauper  child  nurse  a  dead  doll  with  the 
sawdust  out  of  it.  So  I  nursed  my  dead  Homer 
and  my  broken  Demosthenes  though  I  knew  in 
my  heart  that  there  was  more  sawdust  in  the 
stomach  of  one  modern  author  than  in  the 
whole  lot  of  them.  Observe,  I  am  not  saying 
which  it  is  that  has  it  full  of  it. 

So,  as  I  say,  I  began  to  lie  about  the  classics. 
I  said  to  people  who  knew  no  Greek  that  there 
was  a  sublimity,  a  majesty  about  Homer  which 
they  could  never  hope  to  grasp.  I  said  it  was 
like  the  sound  of  the  sea  beating  against  the 
granite  cliffs  of  the  Ionian  Esophagus  :  or  words 
to  that  effect.  As  for  the  truth  of  it,  I 
might  as  well  have  said  that  it  was  like  the 
sound  of  a  rum  distillery  running  a  night  shift 
on  half  time.  At  any  rate  this  is  what  I  said 
about  Homer,  and  when  I  spoke  of  Pindar, — 
the  dainty  grace  of  his  strophes, — and  Aris- 
tophanes, the  delicious  sallies  of  his  wit,  sally 

i86 


Homer  and  Humbug 


after  sally,  each  sally  explained  in  a  note  call- 
ing it  a  sally — I  managed  to  suffuse  my  face 
with  an  animation  which  made  it  almost  beau- 
tiful. 

I  admitted  of  course  that  Virgil  in  spite  of 
his  genius  had  a  hardness  and  a  cold  glitter 
which  resembled  rather  the  brilliance  of  a  cut 
diamond  than  the  soft  grace  of  a  flower.  Cer- 
tainly I  admitted  this:  the  mere  admission  of  it 
would  knock  the  breath  out  of  anyone  who  was 
arguing. 

From  such  talks  my  friends  went  away  sad. 
The  conclusion  was  too  cruel.  It  had  all  the 
cold  logic  of  a  syllogism  (like  that  almost 
brutal  form  of  argument  so  much  admired  In 
the  Paraphernalia  of  Socrates).     For  if: — 

Virgil  and   Homer  and   Pindar  had   all   this   grace, 

and  pith  and  these  sallies, — 
And  if  I  read  Virgil  and  Homer  and  Pindar, 
And    if    they    only    read    Mrs.    Wharton    and    Mrs. 

Humphrey  Ward 
Then  where  were  they? 

So  continued  lying  brought  its  own  reward  In 
the  sense  of  superiority  and  I  lied  more. 

187 


Homer  and  Humhug 


When  I  reflect  that  I  have  openly  expressed 
regret,  as  a  personal  matter,  even  in  the  pres- 
ence of  women,  for  the  missing  books  of 
Tacitus,  and  the  entire  loss  of  the  Abacadabra 
of  Polyphemus  of  Syracuse,  I  can  find  no  words 
in  which  to  beg  for  pardon.  In  reality  I  was 
just  as  much  worried  over  the  loss  of  the 
ichthyosaurus.  More,  indeed:  I'd  like  to  have 
seen  it:  but  if  the  books  Tacitus  lost  were  like 

those  he  didn't,  I  wouldn't. 

I  believe  all  scholars  lie  like  this.    An  ancient 

friend  of  mine,  a  clergyman,  tells  me  that  in 
Hesiod  he  finds  a  peculiar  grace  that  he  does- 
n't find  elsewhere.  He's  a  liar.  That's  all. 
Another  man,  in  politics  and  in  the  legislature, 
tells  me  that  every  night  before  going  to  bed 
he  reads  over  a  page  or  two  of  Thucydides  to 
keep  his  mind  fresh.  Either  he  never  goes  to 
bed  or  he's  a  liar.  Doubly  so:  no  one  could 
read  Greek  at  that  frantic  rate:  and  anyway 
his  mind  isn't  fresh.  How  could  it  be,  he's  in 
the  legislature.  I  don't  object  to  this  man  talk- 
ing freely  of  the  classics,  but  he  ought  to  keep 
it  for  the  voters.     My  own  opinion  is  that  be- 

x88 


Homer  and  Humbug 


fore  he  goes  to  bed  he  takes  whiskey:  why  call 
it  Thucydides? 

I  know  there  are  solid  arguments  advanced 
in  favour  of  the  classics.  I  often  hear  them 
from  my  colleagues.  My  friend  the  professor 
of  Greek  tells  me  that  he  truly  believes  the 
classics  have  made  him  what  he  is.  This  is  a 
very  grave  statement,  if  well  founded.  Indeed 
I  have  heard  the  same  argument  from  a  great 
many  Latin  and  Greek  scholars.  They  all 
claim,  with  some  heat,  that  Latin  and  Greek 
have  practically  made  them  what  they  are. 
This  damaging  charge  against  the  classics 
should  not  be  too  readily  accepted.  In  my 
opinion  some  of  these  men  would  have  been 
what  they  are,  no  matter  what  they  were. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  I  for  my  part  bitterly  re- 
gret the  lies  I  have  told  about  my  appreciation 
of  Latin  and  Greek  literature.  I  am  anxious  to 
do  what  I  can  to  set  things  right.  I  am  there- 
fore engaged  on,  indeed  have  nearly  completed, 
a  work  which  will  enable  all  readers  to  judge 
the  matter  for  themselves.  What  I  have  done 
is  a  translation  of  all  the  great  classics,  not  in 

189 


Homer  and  Humbug 


the  usual  literal  way  but  on  a  design  that  brings 
them  Into  harmony  with  modern  life.  I  will 
explain  what  I  mean  In  a  minute. 

The  translation  is  intended  to  be  within  reach 
of  everybody.  It  is  so  designed  that  the  entire 
set  of  volumes  can  go  on  a  shelf  twenty-seven 
feet  long,  or  even  longer.  The  first  edition  will 
be  an  edition  de  luxe  bound  In  vellum,  or  per- 
haps In  buckskin,  and  sold  at  five  hundred  dol- 
lars. It  will  be  limited  to  five  hundred  copies 
and,  of  course,  sold  only  to  the  feeble  minded. 
The  next  edition  will  be  the  Literary  Edition, 
sold  to  artists,  authors,  actors  and  contractors. 
After  that  will  come  the  Boarding  House  Edi- 
tion, bound  in  board  and  paid  for  in  the  same 
way. 

My  plan  Is  to  so  transpose  the  classical  writ- 
ers as  to  give,  not  the  literal  translation  word 
for  word,  but  what  is  really  the  modern 
equivalent.  Let  me  give  an  odd  sample  or  two 
to  show  what  I  mean.  Take  the  passage  In  the 
First  Book  of  Homer  that  describes  Ajax  the 
Greek  dashing  into  the  battle  in  front  of  Troy. 
Here  Is  the  way  It  runs  (as  nearly  as  I  remem- 

190 


Homer  and  Humbug 


ber),  in  the  usual  word  for  word  translation 
of  the  classroom,  as  done  by  the  very  best  pro- 
fessor, his  spectacles  glittering  with  the  liter- 
ary rapture  of  it. 

"Then  he  too  Ajax  on  the  one  hand  leaped 
(or  possibly  jumped)  into  the  fight  wearing  on 
the  other  hand,  yes  certainly  a  steel  corselet 
(or  possibly  a  bronze  under  tunic)  and  on  his 
head  of  course,  yes  without  doubt  he  had  a 
helmet  with  a  tossing  plume  taken  from  the 
mane  (or  perhaps  extracted  from  the  tail)  of 
some  horse  which  once  fed  along  the  banks  of 
the  Scamander  (and  it  sees  the  herd  and 
raises  its  head  and  paws  the  ground)  and  in 
his  hand  a  shield  worth  a  hundred  oxen  and 
on  his  knees  too  especially  in  particular 
greaves  made  by  some  cunning  artificer  (or 
perhaps  blacksmith)  and  he  blows  the  fire  and 
it  is  hot.  Thus  Ajax  leapt  (or,  better,  was 
propelled  from  behind),  into  the  fight." 

Now  that's  grand  stuff.  There  is  no  doubt 
of  it.  There's  a  wonderful  movement  and 
force  to  it.  You  can  almost  see  it  move,  it 
goes  so  fast.  But  the  modern  reader  can't  get 
it.  It  won't  mean  to  him  what  it  meant  to  the 
early  Greek.  The  setting,  the  costume,  the 
scene  has  all  got  to  be  changed  in  order  to  let 
191 


Homer  and  Humbug 


the  reader  have  a  real  equivalent  to  judge  just 
how  good  the  Greek  verse  is.  In  my  transla- 
tion I  alter  it  just  a  little,  not  much  but  just 
enough  to  give  the  passage  a  form  that  repro- 
duces the  proper  literary  value  of  the  verses, 
without  losing  anything  of  the  majesty.  It 
describes,  I  may  say,  the  Directors  of  the 
American  Industrial  Stocks  rushing  into  the 
Balkan  War  Cloud. — 

Then  there  came  rushing  to  the  shock  of  war 

Mr.  McNicoll  of  the  C.  P.   R. 

He  wore  suspenders  and  about  his  throat 

High  rose  the  collar  of  a  sealskin  coat. 

He  had  on  gaiters  and  he  wore  a  tie, 

He  had  his  trousers  buttoned  good  and  high; 

About  his  waist  a  woollen  undervest 

Bought  from  a  sad-eyed  farmer  of  the  West. 

(And  every  time  he  clips  a  sheep  he  sees 

Some  bloated  plutocrat  who  ought  to  freeze), 

Thus  in  the  Stock  Exchange  he  burst  to  view. 

Leaped  to  the  post,  and  shouted,  "Ninety-two!" 

There  1  That's  Homer,  the  real  thing!  Just 
as  it  sounded  to  the  rude  crowd  of  Greek 
peasants  who  sat  in  a  ring  and  guffawed  at  the 

192 


Homer  and  Humbug 


rhymes  and  watched  the  minstrel  stamp  it  out 
into  "feet"  as  he  recited  it! 

Or  let  me  take  another  example  from  the  so- 
called  Catalogue  of  the  Ships  that  fills  up  near- 
ly an  entire  book  of  Homer.  This  famous 
passage  names  all  the  ships,  one  by  one,  and 
names  the  chiefs  who  sailed  on  them,  and 
names  the  particular  town  or  hill  or  valley 
that  they  came  from.  It  has  been  much  ad- 
mired. It  has  that  same  majesty  of  style  that 
has  been  brought  to  an  even  loftier  pitch  in  the 
New  York  Business  Directory  and  the  City 
Telephone  Book.  It  runs  along,  as  I  recall  it, 
something  like  this, — 

"And  first,  indeed,  oh  yes,  was  the  ship  of 
Homistogetes  the  Spartan,  long  and  swift,  hav- 
ing both  its  masts  covered  with  cowhide  and 
two  rows  of  oars.  And  he,  Homistogetes, 
was  born  of  Hermogenes  and  Ophthalmia  and 
was  at  home  in  Syncope  beside  the  fast  flowing 
Paresis.  And  after  him  came  the  ship  of 
Preposterus  the  Eurasian,  son  of  Oasis  and 
Hyteria,"  .  .  .  and  so  on  endlessly. 

Instead  of  this  I  substitute,  with  the  permis- 
193 


Homer  and  Humbug 


sion  of  the  New  York  Central  Railway,  the 
official  catalogue  of  their  locomotives  taken  al- 
most word  for  word  from  the  list  compiled  by 
their  superintendent  of  works.  I  admit  that 
he  wrote  in  hot  weather.     Part  of  it  runs: — 

Out  in  the  yard  and  steaming  in  the  sun 
Stands  locomotive  engine  number  forty-one ; 
Seated  beside  the  windows  of  the  cab 
Are  Pat  McGaw  and  Peter  James  McNab. 
Pat  comes  from  Troy  and  Peter  from  Cohoes, 
And  when  they  pull  the  throttle  off  she  goes; 
And  as   she  vanishes  there  comes  to  view 
Steam  locomotive  engine  number  forty-two. 
Observe  her  mighty  wheels,  her  easy  roll. 
With  William  J.  Macarthy  in  control. 
They  say  her  engineer  some  time  ago 
Lived  on  a  farm  outside  of  Buffalo 
Whereas  his  fireman,  Henry  Edward  Foy, 
Attended  School  in  Springfield,  Illinois. 
Thus  does  the  race  of  man  decay  or  rot — 
Some  men  can  hold  their  jobs  and  some  can  not. 

Please  observe  that  if  Homer  had  actually 
written  that  last  line  it  would  have  been  quoted 
for  a  thousand  years  as  one  of  the  deepest 
sayings  ever  said.  Orators  would  have  rounded 

194 


Homer  and  Humbug 


out  their  speeches  with  the  majestic  phrase, 
quoted  in  sonorous  and  unintelligible  Greek 
verse,  "some  men  can  hold  their  jobs  and  some 
can  not"  :  essayists  would  have  begun  their  most 
scholarly  dissertations  with  the  words, — "It  has 
been  finely  said  by  Homer  that  (in  Greek) 
'some  men  can  hold  their  jobs'  " :  and  the  clergy 
in  mid-pathos  of  a  funeral  sermon  would  have 
raised  their  eyes  aloft  and  echoed  "Some  men 
can  not  " ! 

This  is  what  I  should  like  to  do.  I'd  like  to 
take  a  large  stone  and  write  on  it  in  very  plain 
writing, — 

"The  classics  are  only  primitive  literature. 
They  belong  in  the  same  class  as  primitive  ma- 
chinery and  primitive  music  and  primitive  med- 
icine,"— and  then  throw  it  through  the  win- 
dows of  a  University  and  hide  behind  a  fence 
to  see  the  professors  buzz II 


195 


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